
( 



AN ESSAY 



ON THE STATE OF 



LITERATURE AND LEARNING 



UNDER THE 



ANGLO-SAXONS. 



London : J. B. Nichols aud Son, Printers, 25, Parliament-street. 



AN ESSAY 



ON THE STATE OF 



LITERATURE AND LEARNING 



UNDER THE 



ANGLO-SAXONS; 



[NTRODUCTORY TO THE FIRST SECTION OF THI 



BIOGRAPHIA BEITANNICA LITERARIA 






ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE. 



BY 

THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq. MA. F.SA. 

OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 



LONDON: 

CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUD GATE- STREET ; RIVINGTONS, 
WATERLOO PLACE, AND ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. 

1839. 



f 



^1' 



^'' ^^ 




AN ESSAY 

ON THE 

STATE OF LITERATURE AND LEARNING 

UNDER THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 



It may truly be asserted that the Hterature of no other 
country can boast of the preservation of such a long and 
uninterrupted series of memorials as that of England. 
Even through the early ages of Saxon rule^ though at 
times the chain is slender, yet it is not broken. We want 
neither the heroic song in which the scop or poet told the 
venerable traditions of the fore-world to the chieftains 
assembled on the " mead-bench/' nor the equally noble 
poems in which his successor sang the truths as well as the 
legends of Christianity. We have history and biography 
as they came from the pen of the Saxon writers, science, 
such as was then known, set down by those who professed 
it, and these written sometimes in the language of their 
fathers ; whilst at other times they are clothed in that tongue 
which the missionaries had introduced, and in which the 
learning of Bede and Alcuin was revered, when the Saxon 
language was no longer understood. We have the doc- 
trine of the church, both as it was discussed among its 
profoundest teachers, and as it was presented in simpler 
form to the ears of the midtitude. Lastly, amongst the 



2 ANGLO-SA.XON POETRY. 

numerous manuscripts which the hand of time has spared 
to us, the lighter Hterature of our Saxon forefathers pre- 
sents itself continually under many varying forms. 

§ I. Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Romance. 
1 . The first records of the Anglo-Saxons carry us back 
to that state of society in which all literature is com- 
prised under the one characteristic head of poetry 3 and 
all literary genius centres in one person, the minstrel, 
who equally composed and sang. This was the litera- 
ture which, in the year 449, the Saxons brought with 
them into our island ; and during the first period of their 
establishment poetry held a high rank both by its com- 
parative importance and by its own intrinsic beauties. 
Life itself, and the language of life, were in those early ages 
essentially poetic j man lived and acted according to his 
impulses and passions ; he was unacquainted with the 
business-like movements and feelings of more civilized 
existence; when he was not occupied in imitating 
the %mous deeds of his forefathers, he hstened to the 
wor&s of the minstrel who celebrated them. The song 
in which were told the gigantic movements of an earlier 
period, already clothed in a traditionary garb of the 
supernatural, was the instrument to which his mind 
owed its rulture ; his very conversation was moulded 
upon it, anB even in the transactions of the council he 
spake in poetry. Among the many examples of the 
poetic feeling of the Saxons, furnished by old historians, 
Bede gives us one which is peculiarly beautiful. When 
Paulinus preached the doctrines of Christ before the 
court of King Edwin, one of his nobles arose and said, 
" Thou hast seen, O King, when the fire blazed, and 
the hall Avas warm, and thou wast seated at the 
feast amid thy nobles, whilst the winter storm raged 



THE MINSTRELS. 3 

without^ and the snow fell, how some solitary sparrow 
has flown through, scarcely entered at one door before it 
disappeared by the other. Whilst it is in the hall it feels 
not the storm, but, after the space of a moment, it returns 
to whence it came, and thou beholdest it no longer, nor 
knowest where or to what it may be exposed. Such, as 
it appears to me, is the life of man, a short moment of 
enjoyment, and we know not whence we came, nor 
whither we are going. If this new doctrine brings us 
any greater certitude of the future, I for one vote for its 
adoption."* 

2. The Poet, or Minstrel, was held in high esteem 
among the Saxons. His genius was looked upon as a 
birth-right, not an acquired art, and it obtained for him 
everywhere the respect and protection of the great and 
the powerful. His place was in the hall of princes, where 
he never failed to earn admiration and applause, attended 
generally with advantages of a more substantial nature. 
The early poem of Beowulf aflibrds us many evidences of 
the high place which poetry held amongst the enjoy r ats 
of life. If the poet would paint to us the joy which 
i-eigned in the royal hall of Heorot, he tells us of the song 
that resounded there — ■ 

scop hwilum sang meanwhile the poet sang 

hiidor on Heorote. serene in Heorot. 

{Beotvulf, V. 987.) 

As, on the contrary, the absence of the wonted minstrelsy 
is a sure sign of sorrow and distress — 

nses hearpan wyn, there is no joy of the harp, 

gomen gleo-beames. no pleasure of the musical-wood.f 

{v. 4519.) 

The poetry of the Anglo-Saxons has preserved to us 

many traits of the character and office of the ancient 

* Bede, Hist. Eccles. Angl. Lib. II. cap. 13. 
f i. e, the harp. 



4 THE MINSTREL^S CHARACTER. 

minstrel. He was sometimes a household retainer 
of the chief whom he served, as we see in the poem of 
Beowulf; sometimes he wandered through different coun- 
tries, visiting the courts of various princes. Thus in a 
fragment of some old romance, which is preserved in the 
Exeter manuscript, and which has been frequently printed 
under the title of the Traveller's Song,* a minstrel is intro- 
duced enumerating the various lands which he had seen 
in his wanderings, and he concludes with the following 
reflection — 

swa scrl)>ende Thus wandering 

ge-sceapum hweorfa'S in the world 

gleo-men guraena the glee-men go about 

geond grunda fela, through many nations, 

J?eai'fe secga'S, they say their wants, 

Jjonc-word sprecal?, speak words of thankfulness, 

simle suS ojjj'e nor'S ever south or north 

sumne ge-m6ta'S they meet some one 

gydda glectwne, skilful in songs, 

geofum un-hneiiwne, un- sparing of gifts, 

se Jje fore dugu^e wile who before his nobility will 

dom ^-rse'ran, raise his sway, 

eorl-scipe sefnan, will perform earlship, 

o)5t)8et eal scace'S until all flitteth 

leoht and lif somod. light and life together. 

L6f se ge-wyrce'S He who worLeth praise 

hafa'S under heofonum hath under the heavens 

he^ih-fsestne dom. high-established sway. 

It was the minstrePs duty, not only to tell the mythic his- 
tory of the earlier ages, but to relate contemporary events, 
and to clothe in poetry the deeds which fell under his eye, 
to turn into derision the coward or the vanquished 
enemy, and to laud and exalt the conduct of his patrons. 
No sooner has Beowulf accomplished the defeat of the 
terri])le Grendel, than the household bard of Hrothgar, 

* First by Conybeare, in his Illustrations of Anglo-Snxon Poetry, and 
afterwards by Kemble in his Edition of Beowulf, by Leo in his Altsiiclisische 
und Angelsilchsische Sprachproben, and by Guest in the History of Enghsli 
Rythms. 



THE MINSTREL'S CHARACTER. 



whose memory was filled with old traditions, commences 
a new sons: on the hero's success. 



hwilum cyninges \>egn, 
guma gilp-hlseden, 
gidda ge-myndig, 
(se j?e eal-fela 
eald-ge-segena 
worn ge-munde, 
word 6]?er fand 
so'Se ge-bunden,) 
secg eft on-gan 
SI'S Be6-wulfes 
snyttrum styrian. 

{Beowulf, V. 1728.) 

Thus the minstrel became endowed with another func- 
tion ; it was by means of his songs that the intelligence 
of contemporary events was, in the earlier ages, carried 
from one court to another. In this way Beowulf became 
acquainted with the sufferings of the Danes, under the 
visitation of the Grendel :— 



sometimes the king's thane, 

a man laden witli lofty themes, 

mindful of songs, 

(he who a great multitude 

of old traditions 

remembered, 

who invented other words, 

truly joined together), 

this man now began 

Beowulf's expedition 

skilfully to put in order. 



for 5am [sy'S^an] wear'S 
ylda-bearnum 
un-dyrne cu5, 
gyddum geomore. 

(.%. 297.) 



therefore it afterwai-ds became 
to the sons of men 
openly known, 
mournfully in songs. 



At times the Bard raised his song to higher themes, and 
laid open the sacred story of the cosmogony, and the 
beginning of all things. Thus, when the warriors were 
joyful in Heorot — 



hser wses hearpan sweg, 
swtitol sang sc6pes : 
ssegde se }?e cuj^e 
frum-sceaft fira 
feorran reccan ; 
cwBeS ]5set se Eel-mihtiga 
eor'San w [orhte] , 
wlite-beorhtne wang 
swa Wceter be-bugeS ; 
ge-sette sige-hre)ng 
sunn [an] and monan, 



there was noise of the harp, 
the clear song of the poet, 
one said that knew 
the origin of men 
from a remote period to relate ; 
he said that the Almighty 
wrought the earth, 
the bright-faced plain 
which water encompasseth ; 
exulting in victory he set up 
the sun and the moon; 



6 THE MINSTREL ,S POETRY. 

leu man to leuhte luminaries to light 

land bu[en]dum ; the inhabitants of the laud ; 

and ge-frsetwade and adorned 

foldan sceatas the districts of the earth 

leomum and le&fum : with boughs and leaves : 

lif ecic ge-sce6p life also he created 

cy [n] na ge-hwylcum for all kinds 

J^ara ^"e cwice hwyrfaj?. that go about alive. 
{Beowulf, V. 178.) 

3. These minstrel-poets had, by degrees, composed a 
large mass of national poetry, which formed collectively 
one grand mythic cycle. Their education consisted chiefly 
in committing this poetry to memory, and it was thus 
preserved from age to age. They rehearsed such por- 
tions of it as might be asked for by the hearers, or as the 
circumstances of the moment might require, for it seems 
certain that they were in the habit of singing detached 
scenes even of particular poems, just as we are told was 
done with the works of Homer in the earlier times of 
Greece. Thus in Beowulf, on one occasion, the subject 
selected by the Bard as most appropriate, is OfFa^s expe- 
dition against Finn, a romance of which, singularly enough, 
we have still a fragment left,* — 

Sser wses sang and sw6g There was song and sound 

samod set-gsedere, all together, 

fore Healf-denes before Healfdene's 

hilde-wisan, chieftains ; 

gomen-wudu greted, the wood of joy was touched, 

gid oft wrecen : the song often sung : 

■Sonne heal-gamen then joy in the hall 

Hr6j>.gires scop Hrothgar's poet 

sefter medo-bence along the mead-bench 

mae'nan scolde, must excite, 

Finnes eaferum concerning Finn's descendants, ^ 

Sa hie se fse'r be-geat. when the expedition came upon them. 
(v. 2119.) 

* The circumstance of our having a part of the very romance which the 
bard is introduced singing, gives a singular air of verity to the pictures of 
early manners in this interesting poem. The fragment iirst printed by 
Hickes, and reprinted in Kemble's Beowulf under the title of " The Battle 



THE MINSTREL S POETRY. 7 

In their passage from one minstrel to another, these poems 
underwent successive changes ; and, since, like the religion 
taught by the priests, the poetry belonged to the whole 
class, without being known severally as the work of this 
or that individual, it happens that all the Anglo-Saxon 
national poetry is anonymous. In like manner, the ques- 
tion as to the authors of most of the poetry of the early 
Grecian cycles was among the Greeks themselves a matter 
of great uncertainty. The practice of singing detached 
pieces also accounts for the fragments of larger poems 
which are still found in manuscripts ; the famous Exeter 
manuscript is chiefly made up of such pieces. Beowulf 
bears internal evidence of having passed through many 
hands in its way from the age of paganism in which it 
was certainly moulded, up to that when among min- 
strels who held a better religion, it received the various 
adventitious traits of Christianity which we now find in 
it. The " Traveller's Song" seems to have been preserved 
as a kind of nomenclature of geography ; and, as might be 
expected, it is full of interpolations, by the addition of the 
names of countries, of which the knowledge was brought 
in by the Christian writers. 

4. The poetry of the Anglo-Saxons was neither modu- 
lated according to foot-measure, like that of the Greeks 
and Romans, nor written with rhymes, like that of many 
modern languages. Its chief and universal characteristic 
was a very regular alliteration, so arranged that, in every 
couplet, there should be two principal words in the first 

of Finnesburh," was found by the former, as he says, in a MS. of semi-Saxon 
Homilies in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth. It has since been 
sought there more than once, but without success. Perhaps it was the 
leaf pasted down in the binding of some MS. which belonged to a very 
different subject ; and, if this be the case, it is certainly very desirable that 
it should be found, as, by sepai'ating it from the cover, more might possibly 
be discovered thaa Hickes was aware of. 



8 ALLITERATION. 

line beginning with the same letter, which letter must also 
be the initial of the first word on which the stress of the 
voice falls in the second line. The only approach to a 
metrical system yet discovered is that two risings and 
two fallings of the voice seem necessary to each perfect 
line. Two distinct measures are met with^ a shorter 
and a longer, both commonly mixed together in the same 
poem, the former being used for the ordinary narrative, 
and the latter adopted when the poet sought after greater 
dignity. In the manuscripts, the Saxon poetry is always 
written continuously like prose, perhaps for the sake of 
convenience, but the division of the lines is generally 
marked by a point. Some Anglo-Saxon scholars, and the 
Germans more particularly, have advocated the printing of 
the alliterative couplet in one line, while others are equally 
zealous for its separation into two. This is, perhaps, more 
a matter of taste than of great importance, though the 
mode, now generally adopted, of dividing the alliterations 
into couplets, seems to be countenanced both by the 
pointing of the manuscripts, and by the circumstance 
that, if the longer metres be arranged according to the 
other method, the length of the lines becomes rather incon- 
venient and unseemly. The harmony and alliteration of 
the lines, as well as the dividing points, are often lost in 
the manuscripts by the inaccuracy of the scribes. 

5. The Anglo-Saxon poetry has come down to us in its 
own native dress. In unskilful hands it sometimes became 
little more than alliterative prose ; but, as far as it is yet 
known to us, it never admitted any adventitious ornaments. 
Having been formed in a simple state of society, it admits, 
by its character, no great variety of style, but generally 
marches on in one continued strain of pomp and gran- 
deur, to Avhich the Anglo-Saxon language itself was in its 
perfect state peculiarly suited. The principal charac- 



ANGLO-SAXON POETRY. \) 

teristic of this poetry is an endless variety of epithet and 
metaphor, which are in general very expressive, although 
their beauty sometimes depends so much on the feelings 
and manners of the people for whom they were made, that 
they appear to us rather fanciful. As, however, these 
poets drew their pictures from nature, the manner in which 
they apply their epithets, like the rich colouring of the 
painter, produces a brilliant and powerful impression on 
the mind. They are, moreover, exceedingly valuable to 
the modern reader, for they make him acquainted with 
the form, colour, material, and every other attribute of the 
things which are mentioned. Thus, when the hero shows 
himself, a long description could not give a more exact 
idea of his apparel than is here conveyed in a few 
words — 

Beowulf ma'Selode ; Beowulf spake ; 

on him byrne scan, on him the coat of mail shone, 

sea [ro] -net seowed the war-net sowed 

smiles or-}?ancum. by the skill of the armourer. 
{BeoxvuJf, V. 804.) 

When the poet describes Beowulf's approach, with his 
attendants, to the Danish capital, we see even the path 
they are treading, and the clank of their armour seems to 
ring in our ears — 

Strce't wees stau-fah, The street was variegated with stones, 

stig wisode the path directed 

gumum Est-gsedere. the men together. 

guS-byrne scan. The war-mail shone, 

heard hond-locen ; hard hand-locked ; 

hring-iren scir the bright ring-iron 

song in searwum, sang in their trappings, 

H hie to sele furSum when they forward to the hall 

in hj'ra gry're-geatwum in their terrible armour 

gangan cwomon. proceeded on their way. 
iv. 637.) 

So, likewise, in Beowulf's desperate encomiter with the 
unearthly Grendel, whom no weapons could injure, when 



10 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY. 

he tears the monster's arm from the shoulder, the poet 

dwells on the momentary act of separation till we seem to 

feel the crash : — 

him on eaxle wear's On his shoulder became 

syn-dolh swe6tol ; a mighty gash evident, 

seonowe on-sprungon, the sinews sprang asunder, 

burston ban-locan. the juncture of the bones burst. 

{Beowulf, V. 1626.) 

» The metaphors also often possess much original beauty. 
Thus, an enemy is not slain — he is put to sleep with the 
sword. So it was with the nicors whom Beowulf had 
destroyed in the sea; and they were found not on the 
shore — but near the leavings of the waves : — 

ac on mergenne But in the morning 

mecum wunde wounded with blades 

be y''S-lafe beside the leavings of the waves 

uppe Ise'gon, they lay aloft, 

swe[ordum] a-swefede. . put to sleep with swords. 
{v. 1124.) 

When a hero died in peace, he ivent on his way. So 
Beowulf's father — 

ge-b^d wintra worn, he abode for many a year, 

se'r he on weg hwurfe ere he went on his way, 

gamol of geardum. old, from his dwellings. 
{v. 525.) 

Men's passions and feelings are sometimes depicted with 
great beauty. What can be more simple and elegant, 
and , at the same time more natural and pathetic, than 
Hrothgar's lamentation over his old and faithful cotm- 
seller, whom unexpectedly the GrendePs mother had 
slain ?— 

HroS-gar maj^elode, Hrothgar spake, 

helm Scyldinga : the protector of the Scyldings : 

ne frin >u after sse'lum, — " Ask not thou after happiness, — 

sorli is ge-niwod sorrow is renewed 

Denigea le6dum ; to the Danish people ; 

dead is JEsc-here dead is JEschere 



ANGLO-SAXON POETRY. 



Yrmen-lafes 
yldra brojpor, 
min run-wita, 
and min rse'd-bora, 
eaxl-ge-stealla 
Sonne we on or-lege 
hafelan w^redon, 
t'onne hniton fej?an 
eoferas cnysedan ; 
[a] scolde eorl wesan 
£e'r-g6d swylc J3sc-here. 
WearlS him on Herote 
to hand-banan 
wsel-gaest wsefre. 



Yrmenlaf's 

elder brother, ' 

the partaker of my secrets, 

and my counsellor, 

who stood at my elbow* 

when we in battle 

guarded our hoods of mail, 

when troops rushed together, 

and helmets clashed ; 

ever should an earl be 

valiant as jEschere. 

Of him in Heorot 

a cunning fatal-guest 

has become the slaughterer. 



nu se6 hand lig [e'S] , 
se J'e e6w wel hwylcra 
wilna dohte. 

{Beowulf, V. 2642.) 



Now the hand lieth low, 
which was good to you all 
for all your desires." 



The anxiety of Beowulf and his people, after the aged 
warrior had fought his last battle, and destroyed his last 
enemy, that his barrow should be raised on an eminence 
overlooking the sea, that it might be a mark to sailors — 



ge-worhton "Sa 

Wedra le6de 

hlse'w on lide, 

se wses heah and brad, 

e^-li15endum 

wide to-syne. 

{V. 6306.) 



wrought then 

the people of the Westerns 
a mound over the sea, 
it was high and broad 
to the seafaring men 
to be seen afar — 



reminds us of a similar sentiment, in an early Greek 
poet, when speaking of the tomb of Themistocles, 
which he -represents as overlooking the Pireeus, and 



* It is curious to observe the similarity of sentiment and expression 
which is often found recurring under similar circumstances. In the metrical 
life of Merlin, attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the hero laments his 
friend and companion in arms in almost the same words as are here put into 
the mouth of Hrothgar (Vit. Merl. v. 46)— 

" O juvenile decus ! quis nunc astabit in armis 
Nunc mihi pone latus, mecumque repellet euntes 
In mea dampna duces, iucumbentesque catervas.'^ 



12 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY. 

wliich would seem, like Beowulf's, to have l)een a large 
tumulus* :— 

'O aos 8e TVfjLJSos iv koXco Ke^co(rfj,€vos 
Tois i^TiopoLs Trpoaprjais earai Trauraxov, 
Tovs T eKTrXeovTas ela-TrkeovTas t o'^erai,, 
^coTTOTav afiiXka Ta>i> veau deda-erai. 
There shall thy mound, conspicuous on the shore, 
^ • . Salute the mai-iners who pass the sea. 

Keep watch on all who enter or depart, 
And be the umpire in the naval strife. 

Similes are very rare in Anglo-Saxon poetry. The 
whole romance of Beowulf contains only five, and those 
are of the simplest kind ; tlie vessel gliding swiftly over the 
waves is compared to a bird ; the Grendel's eyes to fire ; 
his nails to steel ; the light which Beowulf finds in the 
GrendeFs dwelling, under the waters, resembles the serene 
light of the sun; and the sword which has been bathed 
in the monster's blood melts immediately " like ice.'^ 
In the religious poetry such comjiarisons are not more 
common. 

6. The Romances of the Anglo-Saxons hold historically 
the same place in literature which belongs to the Ihad 
or the Odyssey-t Their subjects were either exclusively 
mythological, or histoiical facts, which, in their passage 
by tradition from age to age, had taken a mythic form. 
Beowulf himself is, probably, little more than a fabulous 
personage — another Hercules destroying monsters of 

* Plato Comicus, ap. Plutarch, in vitaThemist. 

t To the comparison already made between the earliest poetry of Greece 
and that of England, it may be added that the names given to a minstrel, 
scojj on the one hand, from acapan, to make, and, on the other, noLrjrrjs, from 
TToietj/, are identically the same, and, indicating a consciousness of the creative 
faculty of the poet, differ entirely from the trobador, and trouvere, of a later 
period of mediseval poetry. The Anglo-Scottish poetry of the fifteenth 
century was merely an imitation of tlie English of the thirteenth and 
fourteenth, and their makkar, or maker, can only be conceived to have merited 
his name by the old rule of lucus a non lucendo, because he borrowed his 
materials ready-made. 



ANGLO-SAXON ROMANCES. 13 

every description, natural or supernatural/ nicors, ogres, 
grendels, dragons. No weak or selfish feelings ever inter- 
fere with his straight course of heroic probity. Courage, 
generosity, and fidelity are his virtues. The coward, the 
niggard, and the traitor, whenever they are mentioned, are 
spoken of with strong marks of abhorrence. The weaker 
sex, though it has scarcely any share in the action,, is 
always treated with extreme delicacy and respect. The plot 
of the poem is at once simple and bold. Among the other 
romances, that of Finn had for its subject the mutual injury 
of two hostile tribes, and acts of vengeance repeated until 
the one was vanquished and Ijecame dependent on the other. 
Sometimes the ladies stand forth as more active and power- 
ful agents. Thus the romance of OfFa Avas founded on the 
marriage of a king with a wood-nymph, and the hatred 
with which she was regarded by his mother, — a story 
frequently reproduced in the romances of the thirteenth 
century. The old German romance of the Niebelungen 
has for its subject the disastrous consequences which arose 
out of the vanity and petulance of two royal dames. The 
subject of that of Waltharius, preserved to us only in a 
Latin dress, is the escape of a prince and his affianced 
bride from the court of the Huns, where they had been 
detained as hostages. -^'^ 

7. The only perfect monument of Anglo-Saxon 
romance, which the hand of time has left us, is Beowulf. 
In it we discover, what was rendered more than probable 
by other considerations, that, after the Saxons had em- 
braced Christianity, they carefully weeded out from their 
national poetry all mention of, or allusion to, those j^erson- 
ages of the earlier mythology, whom their forefathers had 

* The curious poem of Waltharius has been lately printed more accu- 
rately thau ia the older editions, by Grimm and Schmeller, in their Za/em- 
ische Gedichte des X. and XI. Jh, 



14 POPULARITY OP THE ROMANCES, 

worshipped as Gods. But they went no further than 
this ; the subordinate beings of the ancient superstition, 
the elves, nicors, and all the fantastic creatures of the 
popular creed, still held their places; for the Christian 
missionaries themselves beHeved in the spiritual and un- 
seen world as extensively as their converts. The only 
diiference was, that, whilst elsewhere these beings retained 
very nearly their original form and character, in the minds 
of the monks they became so many black demons and 
mischievous hobgoblins.* 

8. That the early romances continued to be popular 
throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, is proved by many 
circumstances. Indeed their heroes were in most instances 
the direct ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon princes, and they 
must therefore always have been listened to with atten- 
tion. Many of the nobles appear to have had such ro- 
mances attached to the early history of their own families, 
as was the case with Waltheof.f That they formed part 
of the poetry in which King Alfred, from his youth, took 
so much pleasure, is proved by the manner in which he 
introduces the name of Weland, one of the most renowned 
personages of the Teutonic mythology, into his translation 
of Boethius. The manuscript of Beowulf, and those which 
contain the fragments that remain of other romances, are 
all of the tenth century, the age in which chiefly the 
Anglo-Saxon vernacular literature was committed to 
writing, which shows that they were then popular. As 
late as the time of the Norman conquest, we are told of 



* The history of the influence of Monkish Christianity on the popular 
Mythology of the Anglo Saxons is developed more at large (by the writer of 
the present essay) in an article on Friar Rush and the Frolicsome Elves, 
in the Foreign Quarterly Review for 1837, vol. xviii. p. 180, 

t The life of Waltheof is printed in the second volume of the Chroniques 
Anglo-Normandes : Frere, Rouen, 1839. 



LpCATION OF THE ROMANCES. 15 

one of the companions of the Saxon Hereward, w^ho had 
been named Godwin, " because he was as valiant as 
Godwin the son of Guthlac, who was so highly extolled 
in the fables of the Ancients,"-^ a clear proof of their general 
popularity at that time. And at the same time, as we learn 
from Hereward's anonymous biographer, there was one 
Leofric, " his presbyter at Bourne,^' who seems to have 
still exercised in part the craft of the minstrel, or scop ; for 
" it was his occupation to collect the deeds of the giants 
and warriors out of the fables of the Ancients, or from 
the accurate relation of others, for the edification of his 
hearers, and to write them in English in order to preserve 
them.'^t Leofric appears to have acted, in some measure, 
as the bard of Hereward's family. 

9. We not only trace the preservation of these romances 
down to a comparatively late period, but we can dis- 
cover marks of their continued influence in various ways. 
From time to time we detect them interweaving themselves 
with the graver recitals of the historian. As the Saxons 
became in course of time more and more firmly settled in, 
and identified with, Britain, their recollections of their old 
country became continually less vivid, the traditions con- 
nected with it less definite, and they began to forget the 
meaning of many of the old legends, although they were 
still punctually handed down from father to son. In ages 
like those of which we are now speaking — indeed more or 
less in all ages — the popular mind ever connects its tra- 
ditions with some object which is constantly before the 

* Godwinus Gille, qui vocabatur Godwinus, quia non impar Godwinofilio 
Guthlaci, qui in fabulis antiquorum valde prsedicatur, — De Gestis Herwardi 
Saxonis, p. 50. 

t . , . . editum a Lefrico diacono ejusdem ad Brun presbitero. Hujus 
enim memorati presbiteri erat studium, omnes actus gigantum et bellatorum 
ex fabulis antiquorum, aut ex fideli relatione, ad edificationem audientium 
congregare, et ob memoriam Anglise Uteris commendare. — lb, p. 2. 



16 MODIFICATIONS OF THE ROMANCES. 

eye^ and thus the old romances were associated with new 
places. A particular tribe, who had brought with them 
some ancient legend, the real scene of Avhich lay upon the 
shores of the Baltic, after they had been settled for a time in 
England, began to look upon it as a story connected only 
with the spot where they now dwelt, and to perpetuate 
the error by giving the name of its hero to some ob- 
ject in their vicinity. Thus came such names as Grimesby 
in Lincolnshire, Wade's-Castle in the North, which took 
their names, one from HaveloVs supposed foster-father, 
the other from a Saxon or northern hero, whose legend 
appears at present to be lost, although it was still pre- 
served little more than two centuries ago. Thus, too, the 
legend of Weland was located in Berkshire. It was in this 
way that the Ongles, or Angles, settled at an earlier period 
near Sleswic, became by degrees confounded with the East- 
Angles in England ; and thus the romance of Oflfa, one of 
the ancient Angle princes or ^'heroes,^^ was under the 
hand of the historian Matthew Paris transformed into 
a life of Offa, King of the Angles in our island. Some 
such process seems to have produced the more modern 
romance of Havelok, that of King Atla still preserved in 
Anglo-Norman and Latin, though in either form inedited, 
and perhaps all the other Anglo-Norman romances which 
form the cycle commonly attributed to the period of the 
Danish invasions, such as Guy of Warwick, Bevis of 
Hampton, and King Horn. In more than one instance 
we find the events of some older family romance mixed up 
with the life of an historical personage. Such, no doubt, 
was the origin of the history of Hereward^s younger days, 
v.'hich his biographer acknowledges to be taken from Avhat 
appears to have been a poem, written by Leofric of 
Bourne; and there are several incidents in it which are 
most remarkably similar to some parts of the romance of 



INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. I'j 

Horn, just mentioned. These were not the most humi- 
liating transformations to which, in the course of ages, the 
Anglo-Saxon romances were condemned : as they had 
been originally formed in the childhood of nations, so at 
a later period they re-appeared in the form of chap-books 
and ballads for the amusement of children ; and it is more 
than probable that the great god Thor, the never-ceasing 
enemy of the Giants of the old Teutonic mythology, has 
degenerated into that popular but no less remarkable hero 
of the nursery, the famous Jack-the-Giant-Killer, the all- 
powerful hammer and the girdle of strength of the god 
having been replaced by the equally efficient sword of 
sharpness and the cap of invisibility. 



§ II. The Anglo-Saxon Christian Poetry. 

1. The introduction of Christianity laid open to the 
Saxons a new field of literary labour, and its influence was 
exerted immediately on the national poetry. On their 
first arrival, at the end of the sixth century, the mission- 
aries were treated with respect. They soon made converts 
rapidly, and the new religion was received even among 
the princes and nobles with a warmth of zeal which was 
imparted, more or less, through many generations to 
their descendants, in whose writings we meet with fre- 
quent expressions of reverence and gratitude towards 
those who had first reclaimed them from the errors of 
paganism.* The minstrels now found that a song of 
scripture lore was more attentively listened to than the 

* The inedited Pi-ose Menology says of St. Gregory, — He is ure altor, 
and we syndan Lis alumni ; "Sset is 'Sset he is ure fester-faeder on Criste, and 
we syndonhis fester-bearn on fuU-wihte, (MS. Cotton. Julius, A. x. fol. 71.) 
He is our altor, and tve are his alumni ; that is, that he is our foster-father 
in Christ, and tve are his foster-children in laptism. The Metrical Meno- 
* g 



18 THE CHRISTIAN POETRY. 

traditionary exploits of their own national heroes ; and thus 
a new class of subjects became popular, though dressed 
in the same style of poetry to which their hearers had 
been so long accustomed. The zeal of many of the more 
influential converts led them, probably, to encourage these 
compositions by all the means in their power. The 
subjects thus chosen were generally detached stories 
from the Old Testament, such as the history of the 
Creation and the fall of the Angels, the story of Judith, or 
of Nebuchadonosor, or were founded on the doctrines and 
prophecies of the New Testament, as the Harrowing of 
Hell, and the Day of Judgment, with all its terrors for the 
wicked and its glories for the good ; sometimes they were 

logy, reprinted from Hickes by the Rev. S. Fox (8vo. Pickering, 1830;, 
says of St. Augustine (1. 200) — 

Ne hyrde ic guman awyrn I have not heard anywhere 

senigne ser that any man 

sefre bringan ever brought 

ofer sealtne mere over the briny sea 

selran lare, — better doctrine, — 

bisceop bremran. a more illustrious bishop. 

In a MS. of the tenth century (MS. Cotton. Cleop. B. xm. fol. 89, v") is 
preserved the following short hymn on the conversion of the Anglo- 
Saxons : 

Sanctus papa Gregorius, 

Augustini didascalus, 

Dum per eum multimoda 

Nosset geri miracula, 

Et Saxonum cor saseum 

Fateri Christum dominum, 

Proventu euvangelicse 

ExhUaratus vinese, 

Psallebat hoc celeumate 

Divino tactus pnenmate. 
Ecce lingua Britannise, 

Frendens olim barbaric, 

In Trinitate unica 

Jam alleluia personat, 

Proventu euvangelicse 

[Exhilarata vineaejl] 



C^DMON. 19 

taken from later legends^ like those of St. Andrew and of 
the finding of the Cross^ or others still more remote from 
scriptural truth, as that of the Phoenix. These subjects 
were worked out and embellished by the imagination of 
the poet, and were not unfrequently tinged with native 
ideas, and even with native superstitions. Not only the 
metaphors and epithets of the romances, and much of the 
old manners and feelings, were reproduced (for Satan and 
Holofernes possess most of the attributes of Saxon chief- 
tains), but expressions, and even whole lines, were continu- 
ally transferred to them, so that we are enabled to correct 
lines in Beowulf by means of the parallel passages which 
are found in the poetry of the Vercelli and Exeter Manu- 
scripts, or in that which has been twice published under 
the name of Csedmon. 

2. The type of the Anglo-Saxon religious poetry Avas 
Csedmon, who, according to the legend, received miracu- 
lously in a dream the gift of song. We are far from 
believing, as some have wished to explain the matter, 
that this miracle really occurred, and that it may be 
accounted for naturally, on the presumption of the 
simple and easy construction of Anglo-Saxon verse. 
On the contrary, that Csedmon's poems were exceedingly 
beautiful we have Bede's own testimony, a man well 
skilled in and much attached to the poetry of his fore- 
fathers ; and that they were by no means easy to compose, 
we may be convinced by a comparison of the older reli- 
gious poetry with that which was certainly written at a 
later period, (when the minstrel, though he still existed, 
was no more the same personage he had been,) such as the 
metrical translations from Boethius attributed to King 
Alfred. The terms in which Bede speaks of the miracle, 
show how extraordinary it appeared to those who lived at 

c 2 



20 DATE OF THE RELIGIOUS POETRY. 

the time, that one who had not been taught the profession 
of poetry, should be able to compose like a regular bard. 
All, indeed, that we are justified in concluding from this 
story is, that Ceedmon was considered to be so far superior 
to his contemporaries in the same art, that it required (as 
has often been the case under similar circumstances) the for- 
mation of a particular legend to account for it. It is highly 
probable that we still have some of his compositions among 
the mass of religious poetry which has been preserved ; 
and we are fairly authorised in believing, from their style 
and particular siibjects, that at least some parts of that 
published first by Junius, and more recently by Thorpe, 
under Csedmon^s name, belonged, in their earlier form, to 
that poet. They possess all the characteristics above enu- 
merated. 

3. We find no manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon religious 
poetry, unless it be some very insignificant fragments, of an 
earlier date than the tenth century, nor does there occur 
any mention of such manuscripts before the time of King 
Alfred — the latter half of the ninth century. Yet, from 
what Bede says of Caedmon and his imitators,* and from 
some other circumstances, it seems probable that the 
vernacular religious poetry was composed chiefly during 
the years which intervened between the age of the poet 
(about A. D. 680) and that of the historian (A. D. 731). 
The circumstances which are most in favour of this 
supposition are, first, its great dissimilarity in style to any- 
thing that can be ascertained to have been written at a later 
period, and, secondly, the frequent allusion which is made 
to it at the earlier period. Aldhelm, who died in 709, is 
said to have been himself one of the best English poets 

* Et quidem et alii post ilium in gente Anglorum religiosa poemata facei-e 
tentabant ; sed nullus eum sequiparare potuit. Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. 
c, 24. 



DATE OF THE RELIGIOUS POETRY. 31 

of his day.* Bede was also partial to the vernacular 

Anglo-Saxon poetry^ and well acquainted with it (doctis- 

simus in nostris carminibus) ; and, even on his death-bed, 

he not unfrequently uttered his thoughts in passages 

taken from the national poets. One of these passages is 

preserved by a writer who Avas with him in his last 

moments, and is thus printed in Asserts Annals : — t 

foi- tham ned-fere before the necessary journey 

neni wirthetli no one becomes 

thances snotera more prudent of thought 

thonne him thearf sy, than is needful to him, 

to ge-hicgenne to search out 

er his heonon-gange before his going hence 

hwet his gaste what to his spirit 

godes othe yveles of good or of evil 

after deathe heonon after his death hence 

demed weorthe. will be judged. 

Boniface, who died in 755, in one of his letters quotes 

likewise a moral sentiment from an Anglo-Saxon poet — 

oft dsedlata oft doth the dilatory man 

domse for-eldit justly lose by his delay 

sigisitha gahwem ; in every successful undertaking ; 

swyltit i>i ana. J therefore he dieth lonely. 

4. During the long period which had thus elapsed 
before this poetry was committed to writing, as we now 
find it, it was preserved almost entirely by the memory. 
When this faculty is exercised and disciplined as it was 
by the minstrels, and also by the scholars of that day, 

* See William of Malmsbury, in Vit. Aldhelm. He is said, among 
other things, to have translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon verse, which 
may possibly have been the same which Mr. Thorpe has so ably edited 
from the Paris MS. or the groundwork of it. 

t Cuthberti Epistola de Morte Bedse, ap. Asser. Annal. (in Gale's Col- 
lection) p. 152. This letter is also found in Simeon of Durham, and else- 
where. 

X Bonifac. Epist. ap. Pertz. Thes. vol. iii. quoted in Gent. Mag. June 
1836, p. 611, where the language of this fragment (which like the one last 
quoted, has been much disfigured by inaccurate Latin scribes) is arranged 
more correctly and translated by Mr. Kemble. 



22 TRANSMISSION OF THE POETRY. 

its power of containing and preserving is perfectly won- 
derful. Among many other books which Wilfred had 
committed to memory in his youth, whilst resident in the 
monastery of Lindisfarne, was the whole book of Psalms ; 
and afterwards, when he found that he had learnt them 
according to the Latin text of Jerome, which was then 
going out of use among the Catholics, he committed them 
to memory a second time, according to the newly autho- 
rised text (more Romanorum juxta quintam editionem).* 
This is mentioned by his biographer, without any expres- 
sion of surprise at his powerful memory, but simply to show 
his respect for the Romish ordinances. There is no class 
of poetry sooner forgotten than that which is intended 
merely to celebrate events of temporary interest ; and yet 
it is clear from William of Malmsbury, that, even in his 
time, (the twelfth century) when the literature of the 
Anglo-Saxons was rapidly falling into neglect, many poli- 
tical songs and poems of all ages, and even some songs 
composed by Aldhelm four centuries before, were still 
preserved in the memory of the people.f 

5. The natural result of this mode of transmission was, 
that the original works of Ceedmon and his contem- 
poraries, as well as the Romances, were considerably dis- 
figured in their passage from one reciter to another, and the 
more so, because the persons by whom they were chiefly 
preserved were often themselves professed minstrels, and 
therefore more likely to- adulterate them. When these 

* Eddius, Vita Wilfred, in Gale, pp. 52, 63. 

t Such was the case with the songs made on the marriage of Gunhilda, 
daughter of Cnut, with the Emperor Henry, full half a century before the 
Norman conquest, — Celebris ilia pompa nuptialis fuit, et nostro adhuc seculo 
etiam in triviis cantitata. Wil. Malms, p. 77, ed. 1601. The poems of Homer 
were originally preserved in much the same manner, and they seem to have 
suffered in their transmission in the same way, though (from circumstances) 
to a much smaller degree than the Anglo-Saxon poetry. 



TRANSMISSION OF THE POETRY. 23 

minstrels sung them, it was of course in the dialect which 
they themselves spoke, and hence it happens that we find 
them all ivritten in the pure West Saxon of the age to 
which the manuscripts belong ; for at that time the West 
Saxon had become the language of learning, the Attic 
dialect of our island. To the philologist this must ever 
be a subject of regret, for it has deprived us of the means 
of examining closely the dialects and changes of the Anglo- 
Saxon language. Sometimes the minstrel forgot a few 
lines, or a long passage, and the poem became imperfect ; 
sometimes he lost a line, or a word, and was obhged to 
make one to supply its place, or to borrow one which his 
memory might supply from some other poem; and at 
other times he might change particular passages, more 
especially the introductions to poems, to suit the occasion, 
or to please his own fancy. Hence the argument raised 
against the authenticity of the poetry attributed to Caed- 
mon, because its introductory lines do not agree with 
certain other lines that have been accidentally preserved as 
Csedmon's Introduction, loses much of its weight. Again, 
as everything tends to show that the Minstrels paid little 
attention to the claims of any particular author to what 
they sung, even the name of Csedmon would soon be for- 
gotten, except as one of the worthies of Bedels history ; 
and the King of the West Saxons himself might read or 
listen to his poetry, without being aware that it was the 
composition of that famous poet of whom he had been 
reading in the historian. 

6. The manuscripts which remain, to whatever page 
we turn, bear witness to the truth of these remarks. If 
we collate two or three manuscripts of the same prose 
Saxon work, we find few variations, and those of a trifling 
description, such as the omission of an unimportant word, 



24 TRANSMISSION OF THE POETRY. 

or the change of certain letters which \¥ere always used 
as interchangeable. But the manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon 
poetry abound in every kind of defect, and these faults 
are mostly of such a nature as to show that their con- 
tents must have been taken down from recitation. We 
have seldom the opportunity of comparing two manu- 
scripts of the same poem; but in the Exeter Manu- 
script there are some fragments of what is printed as 
Ccedmon, and by a comparison of these, we find that 
words beginning with the same letter are continually inter- 
changed in the alliteration, that whole lines which had 
escaped the memory of the reciter had been supplied by 
others which still made alliteration and sense, that a word, 
a line, and sometimes a paragraph, had been lost here and 
there, and these are combined with a host of smaller 
variations. Sometimes a passage has suffered so much, 
that it no longer affords either alliteration or sense (or, as 
we should say of modern verse, either rhyme or reason), 
and the latter folios of the manuscript of Csedmon are 
evidently nothing but the stringing together of such 
passages of the original as the scribe could at the moment 
recall to memory. The number and character of these 
variations also support the argument above stated for the 
antiquity of the poetry itself. 

7. Indeed the principal manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon 
religious poetry which are left, can only be regarded as so 
many miscellaneous collections of poems and fragments, 
written down probably at different times, and from the 
recitation of different persons. Of the poem of Judith, 
one of the finest specimens of Anglo-Saxon song, we have 
only a fragment preserved in a Cottonian manuscript.* 

* Vitellius, A. xv. the same MS. which has preserved the romance of 
Beowulf; 



THE RELIGIOUS POETRY. 25 

The collection which goes by the name of Cseclmon, 
and which is preserved in a manuscript in the Bod- 
leian Library at Oxford, is rather a series of pieces 
on scriptural subjects, perhaps not all by the same 
hand, than a continued poem. That known as the 
Exeter Manuscript, is extremely miscellaneous : we find 
in it fragments of Ceedmon and other religious poems, 
pious songs in praise of the Virgin, legends of the day of 
judgment, of the punishments inflicted on the wicked in 
the other world, of the Phoenix and the terrestrial para- 
dise, of St. Guthlac and St. Juliana, along with fragments of 
all kinds from romances and religious poems, moral sayings, 
riddles, &c. A manuscript preserved at Vercelli, in Pied- 
mont, for the publication of which we are indebted to 
the literary zeal of Mr. Purton Cooper, contains also much 
fine A-iiglo-Saxon religious poetry, as the legend of St. 
Andrew, and that of the Invention of the Cross, with one 
or two fragments.* 

8. The style of the Anglo-Saxon religious poetry bears 
a close resemblance to that of the romances. It is dis- 
tinguished by the same abundance of epithet and metaphor, 
and by the same richness of colouring. It is even more 
pompous, and seems to have been marked by a much 
more frequent use of the longer measure of verse. It excels 
also in precisely the same class of pictures which strike 
us most in Beowulf — and particularly in those which belong 
to war and festivity. Ceedmon, for instance, affords us 

* The poem of Judith is iJrinted in Thorpe's Analecta. Csedmon, and 
the poetry of the Vercelli MS. are both edited by Mr. Thorpe, to whose 
learning and zeal we owe, in addition to the translation of Raske's Gram- 
mar and the edition of the Paris Psalter, the two most useful and elementary 
books which any language possesses,— the Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, and 
an edition of the Anglo-Saxon translation of ApoUonius of Tyre. The 
Exeter Book is, we are glad to hear, in the press, to be edited by Mr. 
Thorpe, and published, like Ceedmon, at the expense of the Society of 
Antiquaries. 



26 



THE RELIGIOUS POETRY. 



the following peculiarly impressive description of the march 
of an army — 



\>a, him eorla m6d 

ortrywe wear's, 
si'S^an hie ge-sawon 
of su'S-wegum 
fy'rd Faraonis 
foe's on-gangan, 
ofer holt wegan, 
eored lixan. 
Garas trymedon, 
gu'S hwearfode, 
blicon bord-hreo'San, 
by'man sungon, 
Jjufas Jjunian, 
J?eod-mearc tredan. 
On hwsel hwreopon 
here-fugolas, 
hilde grse'dige, 
deawig-fe'Sere, 
ofer driht-neum, 
wonn wrel-ceasega ; 
wulfaa sungon 
atol sefen-leo'S 
je'tes on w^nan, 
carleasan deor 
cwyld rof [urn] beodan. 
{Thorpe's Cmdmon, p. 



Then the mind of his men 
became despondent, 
after they saw 
from the south ways 
the host of Pharaoh 
coming forth, 
moving over the holt, 
the band glittering. 
They prepared their arms, 
the war advanced, 
bucklers gleamed, 
trumpets sung, 
standards rattled, 
they trod the nation's frontier. 
Around them screamed 
the fowls of war, 
greedy of battle, 
dewy-feathered, 
over the bodies of the host, 
the dark chooser of the slain (the raven) ; 
the wolves sung 
their horrid even-song 
in hopes of food, 
the reckless beasts 
threatening death to the valiant. 
187.) 



A similar description is found in the fragment of 
Judith — 



|?a wear's snelra werod 
snude ge-gearewod, 
c^nra to campe ; 
st(5pon cyne-r6fe 
secgas and gesi'Sas, 
bseron J^ufas, 
f6ron to ge-feohte 
for'S on ge-rihte, 
hsele'S under helmum, 
of ]:>8ere haligran by rig, 
on J^aet daeg-red sylf ; 
dynedan scildas, 
hlude hlummon. 



Then was the army of the bold ones 

quickly made ready, 

of the men eager for the conflict ; 

marched on nobly 

the warriors and their companions, 

they carried the standards, 

went to the fight 

straight forwards, 

the heroes under their helms, 

from the holy city, 

at the very dawn ; 

the shields resounded, 

loudly they roared. 



THE RELIGIOUS POETRY. 



27 



Jjses se hlanca ge-feali 
wulf in walde, 
and se wanna hrefn, 
wsel-gifre fugel, 
westan begen, 
J^set him Sa J^eod-guman 
}?ohton tilian 
fylle on fsegum ; 
ac him fleah on laste 
earn setes georn, 
urig fe'Sera, 
salowig pada 
sang hilde ISO'S, 
hyrned nebba. 
Stopon hea'So-rincas, 
beornas to beadowe, 
bordum be-'Seahte, 
hwealfum lindum, 
\}a, "Se hwile ser 
eKeodigra 
edwit }5oledon, 
hse'Senrd hosp. 
{Thorpe^s Analecta, p. 137.) 



Therefore the lank wolf 

rejoiced in the forest, 

and the swarthy raven, 

the bird greedy of slaughter, 

both from the west, 

that there of mankind 

they thought to get 

their fill amidst the slain ; 

and in their track flew 

the eagle greedy of food, 

hoary of feathers, 

the sallow-coated one 

he sang the war-song, 

horny-beaked. 

The warriors marched, 

the chieftains to the war, 

protected with bucklers, 

with arched linden-shields, 

who a while before 

had suffered the reproaches 

of the foreigners, 

the insult of the heathens. 



The same poem presents us with a remarkable descrip- 
tion of a drunken feast, which is also a good specimen of 
the mixture of long and short metres — 



l^Eer wseron bollan steape 
boren sefter bencum gelome, 
swylce eac bunan and orcas 
fulle flet-sittendum -. 
hie \>dit fsege Jjcgon, 
r6fe rond-wiggende, 
Jjcah "Sees se rica ne wende, 
egesful eorla dryhten. 

Dawear^ Holofernus, 
gold-wine gumena, 
on gyste-salum ; 
hloh and hlydde, 
hlynede and dynede, 
\>cs.t mihten fira beam 
feorran ge-hy'ran, 
hu se sti'5-m6da 
styrmde and gylede, 
ia6dig and juedu-gal, 



There were deep bowls 

carried along the benches often 

so likewise cups and pitchers 

full to the people who were sitting on 

the renowned shielded- warriors [couches : 

were fated, while they partook thereof, 

although that powerful man did not think 



the dreadful lord of earls. 
Then was Holofernes, 
the munificent patron of men, 
in the guest-hall ; 
he laughed and rioted, 
made tumult and noise, 
that the children of men 
might hear afar, 
how the stern one 
stormed and shouted, 
moody aad drunk with mead, 



[it, 



28 MISCELLANEOUS POETRY. 

manode ge-neahhe exhorted abundantly 

benc-sittende, the sitters on the bench, 

J^aet hi ge-bserdon wel. so that they conducted themselves well. 

Swa se inwidda Thus this wicked man 

ofer ealne dseg, during the whole day 

dryht-guman sine his followers 

drencte mid wine, drenched with wine, 

swi'S-mod sinces brytta, the haughty dispenser of treasure, 

CS >set hie on swiman lagon, until they lay down intoxicated, 

ofer-drencte his dugu'Se ealle, he over-drenched all his followers, 

swylce hie wseron dea'Se ge- like as though they were struck with 

slegene , death, 

agotene goda gehwylces : exhausted of every good : 

swa het se gumena aldor thus commanded the prince of men 

fylgan flet-sittendum, to fill to those who were sitting on couches, 

0^5 l^set fira bearnum until to the children of mortals 

nealsehte niht seo >ystre. the dark night approached. 
(Thorpe^ s Analecta, p. 131.) 

9. The Anglo-Saxon poems of a more miscellaneous 
character, which are preserved, are neither very numerous, 
nor, with one or two exceptions, of any great importance. 
Political excitement soon took the place of pious zeal, 
and the religious poetry, thrown from its former high posi- 
tion, was chiefly occupied in hymns and prayers. The 
clergy introduced regular alliteration sometimes even 
into their sermons, apparently in order to make them 
more impressive, and more easy to carry in mind by 
a people whose memory Avas less accustomed to retain 
prose than verse. In the Exeter Manuscript we have 
much poetry that is certainly of no very remote antiquity, 
compared with the manuscript itself, and among these we 
may mention the different poems in praise of the Virgin 
Mary, which show that the worship of " our Lady" was 
gaining ground rapidly among the Anglo-Saxons at the 
time when they were written. The poetry of this class of 
writings is not of a very high order, for the task of 
composing them had passed out of the hands of the poets 
into those of the monks. 



POLITICAL POETRY. 29 

10. We may naturally suppose, indeed, that, amid the 
continued wars of the ninth and tenth centuries, the peace- 
ful dictates of Christianity were among the last subjects 
that would be listened to by the excited warriors. The 
minstrel who Avould obtain praise or reward, sang matters 
of more temj)orary interest ; and there was produced a 
great number of political songs, upon which, long treasured 
up in the memory of the people, later chroniclers built 
much of the history of these eventful times. William of 
Malmsbury, and some other writers of his age, make fre- 
quent allusions to these songs, and one or two are pre- 
served in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There has also 
come down to us one large fragment of a fine poem on 
the battle of Maldon and the death of the " ealderman^' 
Byrhtnoth, in 993, which furnishes us with an interesting 
picture of Anglo-Saxon feelings. The speeches which are 
put into the mouths of Byrhtnoth's noble followers, the 
"lofty thanes'^ (wlance }>egenas), when they devote them- 
selves to death in the field on which their superior lord had 
already fallen, are strongly characteristic. Alfwine, the 
son of Alfric, a young warrior, first addressed his com- 
panions, — 

On ellen-sprsec ge-muna Remember the bold speech 

]>a. msele l^e we oft which we oft times 

get meodo sprsecon, spoke at our mead, 

J'onne we on bence when we on the bench 

beot ah6fon, made our boasts, 

hsele'S on healle, we warriors in the hall, 

ymbe heard ge-winn ; about hard war ; 

nu mseg cunnian now may be tried 

hwa c^ne sy ; who is valiant ; 

ic wylle mine sel^elo I my nobility 

eallum ge-cyj:'an, will make known to all, 

}>ffit ic wses on Myrcon that I was among the Mercians 

miccles cynnes, of noble race, 

wa2s min ealda-feeder my grandfather was 

Ealhelm haten, called Ealhelra, 

wis ealdorman, a wise chieftain, 



POLITICAL POETRY. 



woruld-ge-saelig. 

Ne sceolon me on \>XYe i>eode 

J^egenas setwitan, 

J>8et ic of J>isse fyrde 

fdran wille, 

eard ges^can, 

nu min ealdor lige'S 

for-heawen set hilde : 

me is J^set hearma msest, — 

he wses seg'Ser min meeg 

and min hlAford. 

(Thorpe, Analec. p. 127.) 



rich in worldly possessions. 

Me the thanes shall not 

reproach among the people, 

that I from this expedition 

will depart, 

will seek my home, 

now that my lord lieth low 

hewn to death in the battle : 

that is to me the greatest of griefs,' 

he was both my kinsman 

and my lord. 



The exhortation of Alfwine is answered by several of 
his companions, and, among the rest, by Leofsmiu of 
Sturmere (in Essex) — 



Leofsunu ge-mselde, 

and his linde ahof, 

bord to ge-beorge, 

he J^am beorne on-cwse'S : 

Ic t>Eet ge-hate, 

Jjset ic heonon nelle 

fle6n f6tes trym, 

ac wille fur^or g^n, 

wrecan on ge-winne 

minne wine-drihten. 

Ne Jjurfon me embe Stur-mere 

stede-fseste hsele'S 

wordum setwitan, 

nu min wine ge-crane, 

Jjset ic hlaford-leas 

h^m si'Sie, 

wende fram wige, 

ac me sceal wsepen niman, 

ord and iren. 

He ful yrre w6d 

feaht fsestlice, 

fleam he for-hogode. 

(lb. p. 128.) 



Leofsunu spake, 

and lifted his linden buckler, 

the shield for his protection, 

he said to the warrior : 

" This I promise, 

that I will not hence 

fly a foot's space, 

but that I will advance onward, 

to avenge in the battle 

my beloved chieftain. 

They about Sturmere shall not need, 

the steadfast warriors, 

to reproach me with words, 

now my comrade is fallen, 

that I lord-less 

journey home, 

that I depart from the war, 

but me shall the weapon take, 

edge and iron." 

He full mad with anger 

fought firmly, 

flight he despised. 



As may be seen in the passages here cited, the crowded 
epithets and metaphors of the romances and earlier reli- 
gious poems are not found in these later productions, 



STUDY OF LATIN AND GREEK. 31 

§ III. The AnglO'Latin Writers, 
1. While the introduction of the Christian religion was 
thus modifying the old national literature of the Anglo- 
Saxons, a foreign literature was brought in with it, which 
was soon to exercise an important influence. Many of 
the missionaries whom the Anglo-Saxon Church justly 
regarded as its fathers, were distinguished as scholars, 
and by their example a general love of learning was 
soon spread amongst their converts. Schools had been 
already founded before the middle of the seventh cen- 
tury. It is, however, to two foreign scholars, Theodore 
and Adrian, who were sent into England early in the lat- 
ter half of the same century, that we owe the establish- 
ment of learning among the Anglo-Saxons. Theodore, a 
native of Tarsus, was made Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and even at Rome was famous for his extensive acquaint- 
ance with profane as well as sacred literature, and that 
equally in the Latin and Greek languages.* His friend 
the Abbot Adrian was by birth an African, but, like his 
companion, he was, to use the words of Bede, " exceed- 
ingly skilled both in Greek and Latin y" f and he is termed 
by WiUiam of Malmsbury *^ a fountain of letters and a 
river of arts.^'l These two foreigners first began to teach 
openly, in conjunction with the Christian faith, the arts 
and sciences, and the languages of Greece and Rome, and 
their school was so well attended, that, when Bede wrote 
his history, there were still alive some of their scholars, 

* Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. c. 1. and his Hist. Abbat. Wiremuth. p. 223, 
in the Cologne edition of his works. The genviine penitential of Theodore, 
preserved in the Library of Corp. Chr. Col. Cambridge, will appear for the 
first time in Mr. Thorpe's new edition of the A.-S. Laws. 

t Bede, Hist. Eccl. ih. 

X Qui esset fons litterarum, rivus artium. W. Malms, de Pontif. p. 340. 



32 ANGLO-SAXON LEARNING. 

wlio^ as he assures us, were as well versed in Greek and 
Latin as in their own native tongue.* Amongst those 
who had profited most by Adrian's teaching was Aldhelm 
of Sherburn. 

2. The Anglo-Saxons approached the intellectual field 
which was thus laid open to them with extraordinary- 
avidity. They were like the adventurous traveller who has 
just landed on a newly discovered shore : the very obstacles 
which at first stood in their way, seemed to have been 
placed there only to stimulate their zeal. They thus soon 
gained a march in advance even of their teachers, and the 
same age in which learning had been introduced amongst 
them, saw it reflected back with double lustre on those 
who had sent it. At the beginning of the eighth century, 
England possessed a number of scholars who would have 
been the just pride of the most enlightened age ; and not 
only teachers, but books also, were sent over to the Franks 
and Germans. The science which they planted there, 
continued to flourish long after it had faded at home. 

3. The cultivation of letters was in that age by no means 
confined to the robuster sex — the Anglo-Saxon ladies ap- 
plied themselves to study with equal zeal, and almost equal 
success. It was for their reading chiefly that Aldhelm 
wrote his book De Laude Virginitatis. The female corres- 
pondents of Boniface wrote in Latin with as much ease as the 
ladies of the present day write in French, and their letters 
often show much elegant and courtly feeling. They 
sometimes also sent him specimens of their skill in writing 
Latin verse. The abbess Eadburga was one of Boniface's 
most constant friends ; she seems to have frequently sent 

* Indicio est quod usque hodie supersunt de eorum discipulis, qui Lati« 
nam Grsecamque linguam seque ac propriam, in qua nati sunt, norunt. Bede, 
Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 2. 



LEARNED WOMEN. 33 

liira books, written by herself or by her scholars, for the 
instruction of his German converts ; and on one occa- 
sion he accompanies his letter to her with a present 
of a silver pen.^^ Leobgitha, one of her pupils, con- 
cludes a letter to Boniface by offering him a specimen 
of her acquirements in Latin metres.— ^^ These under- 
written verses," she says, " I have endeavoured to com- 
pose according to the rules derived from the poets, not in 
a spirit of presumption, but with the desire of exciting 
the powers of my slender talents, and in the hope of thine 
assistance therein. This art I have learnt from Eadburga, 
who is ever occupied in studying the divine law.'^f The 
four hexameters which follow this introduction, though not 
remarkable for elegance or correctness, are still a favour- 
able specimen of the attainments of a young Anglo-Saxon 
dame. They are addressed as a concluding benediction 
to Boniface himself :— 

" Arbiter omnipotens, solus qui cuncta creavit. 
In regno patris semper qui lumine fulget ; 
Qua jugiter flagrans sic regnet gloria Christi, 
Illsesum servet semper te jure perenni." 

4. The zeal for the study of foreign literature, joined 
with religious j)rejudices, was followed by another result. 
As early as the latter end of the seventh century, all 
ranks of people were seized with a desire of visiting 
Rome, the source from which had issued this pure stream 

* Unum grapliium argenteum. Bonifac. Epist, p. 73, in his works. It 
is, perhaps, rather a license thus taken in caSlmg grapMum, a pen : it seems 
to have been more properly a kind of instrument for scraping and rubbing, 
which the scribe held in his hand while writing. 

t Istos autem subterscriptos versiculos componere nitebar secundum 
poeticEe traditionis disciplinam, non audacia confidens, sed gracilis ingenioli 
rudimenta excitare cupiens, et tuo auxilio indigens. Istam artem ab Ead- 
burgse magisterio didici, quse indesinenter legem divinam rimari non cessat. 
lb. p, 83. 

* D 



34 VISITS TO ROME. 

of doctrine and knowledge. Bishops and priests sought 
to receive confirmation of their estate and doctrine from 
the hand and mouth of the Pope ; multitudes of the 
middle classes left their homes and goods to spend their 
lives in the vicinity of the see of the apostle Peter ; even 
j^rinces laid down their crowns in order to end their days 
in the holy city. At first the heads of the church encou- 
raged this kind of pious exile. The numerous visits to 
Rome brought with them many advantages ; they increased 
the general taste for knowledge, and gave rise to a spirit of 
intellectual adventure and research^ and the travellers often 
spent their time in that city of science and learning in 
transcribing old manuscripts, or their money in purchasing 
them ; so that, in addition to many of the luxuries and ele- 
gancies of life, they came home laden with books. But it 
was soon found that this rage for travelling to Italy was 
attended with great evils and inconveniences ; and it is 
strongly condemned by Boniface, Avho laments, in some of 
his letters, that the pilgrims were continually falling off 
before the temptations and dangers which befel them 
among strange people in unknown lands. The women, in 
particular, who left their homes with the intention of be- 
coming nuns at Rome, were sometimes drawn into a less 
respectable way of living in the towns that lay in their way, 
and their conduct was more likely to throw disgrace than 
lustre upon the Christianity of the Anglo-Saxons.* 

5. In England, during the eighth century, the multipli- 
cation of books was very great. The monks were emu- 
lous of attaining skill in writing and illuminating. At a 
later period, this was enumerated as one of the accomplish- 

* Quia magna ex parte pereunt, paucis remanentibus integris. Perpaucse 
eniai sunt civitates in Longobardia, vel in Francia, aut in Gallia, in qua 
non sit adultera vel meretrix generis Angloruiu, quod scandalum est, etc. 
Epnifac. Epist. p. 105. 



MULTIPLICATION OF BOOKS. 35 

ments even of so great a man as Dunstan.* Diligence and 
industry, in the absence of the more speedy process of 
printing, enabled the Anglo-Saxons not only to form 
several public libraries in England, as well as private col- 
lections, but also to send out of the country books in con- 
siderable numbers. Boniface, while moving about from 
place to place on the Continent, addresses frequent de- 
mands of this kind to his brethren at home ; who, on the 
other hand, are constantly applying for copies of new books, 
or such as were not yet known in England, which he might 
chance to meet with, in order to increase their own stores. 
At one time he asks for some works of Bede, — at another 
time he prays one of his friends to send him some of those 
of Aldhelm, "to console him amidst his labours with these 
memorials of that holy bishop ;^' and on one occasion he 
asks the abbess Eadburga to cause a copy of the Gospels to 
be written magnificently in letters of gold, and sent to him 
in Germany, that his converts there might be impressed 
with a proper reverence for the sacred writings.f A simi- 
lar volume had, at an earlier period, been given by Wilfrid 
to the church of York, where it was an object of great 
admiration ; it contained the four Gospels written in 
letters of gold on purple vellum, and its cover, made of 
solid gold, Avas studded with gems and precious stones.J 
Many specimens of the magnificent writings of this age 
are still preserved. A noble copy of the Gospels, written 

* Artem sci-ibendi, necne citharizandi, pariterque pingendi peritiam dili- 
genter excoluit. Life of Dunstan, in MS. Cotton. Cleopat. B. xiii. fol. 
69, v". (by Bridferth.) 

t Bonifac. Epist. p. 81. 

t Addens quoque Sanctus Pontifex noster inter alia inauditum 

ante seculis nostris quoddam miraculum. Nam quatuor Evangelise de auro 
purissimo in membranis depurpuratis, coloratis, pro animte suae remedio 
scribere jussit ; necnon et bibliothecam libromm eorum omnem de auro 
purissimo et gemmis pretiosissimis fabrefactam, compaginare inclusores 
gemmarum prsecepit, etc, Eddii Vita Wjlfridi, p. 60, in Gale's Scriptores, 

V2 



36 MULTIPLICATION OF BOOKS. 

at Lindisfarne in the latter years of the seventh century, 
after havmg escaped many perils both by fire and floods is 
now deposited among the Cottonian Manuscripts in the 
British Museum, where it is known by the title of the 
Durham Book ;* but the rich cover which once inclosed it 
has long disappeared. It was, indeed, but a short-sighted 
devotion to apply these valuable materials to such a pur- 
pose ; for amidst the troubles which came on a little later 
— ^internal dissensions^ and the ravages of a foreign enemy 
who respected not the faith in which they had originated 
— the books were too often sacrificed to the rapacity which 
their exterior dress had excited. 

6. In the time of Theodore and Adrian, the principal 
seats of learning were in Kent, and the south of England, 
where it continued long after to flourish at Malmsbury, and 
in some other places. But the kingdom of Northumbria 
seems to have afforded a still more congenial situation j 
and the school established at York, by Wilfred and Arch- 
bishop Egbert, was soon famous throughout Christendom. 
Egbert taught there Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and 
the vast collection of books, which had been amassed by 
him and his predecessors, afforded great facility to literary 
pursuits. Alcuin, who was one of his scholars, frequently 
dwells with pleasure, in his letters, on the memory of his 
ancient master and early studies, and contrasts the lite- 
rary stores amongst which he had been bred with the 
barrenness of France. In 796, when he was engaged in 
his school at Tours, he writes to Charlemagne — " I here 
feel severely the want of those invaluable books of scho- 
lastic erudition which I had in my own country, by the 
kind and most affectionate industry of my master, and 

* It was written by Bisliop Eadfred, then only a monk. Eadfred died in 
721. A very interesting popular account of this manuscript is given in 
Brayley's Graphic Ilhistrator, p. 355. 



ANGLO-SAXON LIBRARIES. S'j 

also in some measure by my own humble labours. Let 
me therefore propose to your excellency, that I send over 
thither some of our youth, who may collect for us 
all that is necessary, and bring back with them into 
France the flowers of Britain." * In his metrical history 
of the church of York,t Alcuin gives a more particular 
account of this library ; he tells us that it contained, 
amongst many other books which he thought of less 
consequence, the works of Jerome, Hilarius, Ambrose, 
Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory, Pope Leo, Basil, Ful- 
gentius, Cassiodorus, John Chrysostom, and Victorinus^ 
with those of the native writers, Bede and Aldhelm. 
Among the historical writers and philosophers there were 
Orosius, Boethius, Pompeius (probably Justin), Pliny, 
Aristotle, and Cicero. The poets who were then chiefly 
read were all found there, such as Sedulius, Juvencus, 
Alcimus, Clemens {i. e, Prudentius), Prosper, Paulinus, 
Arator, Fortunatus, Lactantius ; and, of the antients, he 
mentions Virgil, Statius, and Lucan, as being at that 
time the most esteemed. The grammarians were also 
numerous, such as Probus, Phocas, Donatus, Priscian, Ser- 
vius, Eutychius, Pompeius (probably Festus), and Com- 
mianus. In fact, books of Theology and Grammar were 
those most studied and sought after at this period, and are 
the subjects most frequently mentioned by the correspond- 
ents of Boniface in their inquiries after new works. In a 
volume preserved in the British Museum, written not much 
later than the beginning of the ninth century, the original 
possessor, whose name was Athelstan, a great reader, as it 
appears, of grammatical and scientific books, has inserted on 
one of the pages a catalogue of his own library ; it consisted 
of Isidore's treatise de Natura Rerum, at that period one 

* Alcuini, Epistols, p. S3, in his works. 

t Alcuin. de Pontif, etc. Eborac. p. 730, in Gale's Scriptoress 



38 ANGLO-SAXON LIBRARIES, 

of the text-books of general science, and a book of calcu- 
lations, or arithmetic, which he had obtained from a 
priest named Alfwold ; his grammatical treatises were two 
works on metres, the less and greater Donatus, a gloss on 
Cato, and another on Donatus, and an anonymous trea- 
tise on Grammar, with a book of Dialogues, the subject 
of which is uncertain. The only book falling under the 
class of theology is a copy of the Apocalypse ; and 
there are two poets, Persius and Sedulius.* But when 
we bear in mind that it was the custom in cataloguing 
books to give the title of the first work in the volume 
only, and that the volume in which this list is found, 
and which is described in it by the title of Isidore 
de Natura Berum, contains, in addition to that treatise, 
Bede's Poem De Die Judicii, a work of Priscian, a 
glossary of uncommon Latin words, and some other 
things ; we may conclude that Athelstan's library was by 
no means to be despised. With these libraries may be 
compared that of Bishop Leofric, which he gave to the 
church of Exeter in the earlier part of the eleventh century, 
after the Anglo-Saxon language had become more popular 
Avith the writers of books. In this collection, consisting 
of near sixty volumes, there were twenty-eight con- 
taining English Avorks, mostly theology, hymns, homi- 
lies, and translations of scripture, but including King 
Alfred^s translation of Boethius, and the great collection 
of Anglo-Saxon poetry Avhich is still preserved and known 
by the name of the Exeter Book,t in a fly-leaf of which 

* j'is syndon Sa bee J'e yEJ'estanes wseran. de Natura E,erum. Persius. De 
Arte Metrica. Donatum minorem. Excerptioues de Metrica Arte. Apo- 
calipsin. Donatum majorem. Alchuinum. Glossam super Catonem. Libellum 
de Grammatica Arte quce incipit, Terra quce pars. Sedulium. and i. ge-riin 
■WEES Alfwoldes preostes. Glossa super Donatum. Dialogorum. — MS. Cotton. 
Domit. A. I. fol. 55, y". The last two articles seem, by the writing, to 
have been added to the library after the list M'as first written. 

t The original MS. somewhat dilapidated, remains st Exetpr, A, care- 



FOREIGN BOOKS. 89 

the catalogue is inserted. The Latin works in this collec- 
tion were, in theology, the Pastorale and Dialogues of 
Gregory, the books of the Prophets, with various other 
separate portions of the Bible, a Martyrology, the Lives 
of the Apostles, various theological works of Bede and 
Isidore, and some anonymous treatises of the same kind ; 
in philosophy, there were Boethius de Consolatione, the 
Tsagoge of Porphyry, Isidore/s Etymologies ; in history, 
Orosius, a very popular book among the Anglo-Saxons ; the 
poets mentioned are the ordinary Christian writers then 
most in repute, Prosper, several volumes of Prudentius, 
Sedulius, and Arator, with Persius and Statins. The con- 
tents of these three libraries, those of a great scholastic 
establishment, of a private individual, and of a bishop, will 
give a very fair view of the class of foreign writers most 
generally read by our Saxon forefathers, and consequently 
those on which their literary taste was moulded. The 
numerous manuscripts of the Saxon period which are still 
preserved contain chiefly the same works, except that there 
we find many names of less celebrity which do not appear 
in these lists, and also a greater number of classical authors, 
such as Virgil, Horace, Terence, Juvenal, and some of the 
more common prose writers of antiquity. 

7. There can, indeed, be no doubt, not only from the 
manuscripts of them which are still found written in a 
Saxon hand, but from the manner in which the Anglo- 
Saxon scholars quote them in their works, that they were 
in the habit of reading many of the best Latin authors. 
Bede quotes by name, in his tracts on grammar and 
metres, along with Arator, Fortunatus, Sedulius, Prosper, 
Paulinus, Juvencus, Prudentius, and Ambrose, the Avrit- 
ings of Yirgil very frequently, as well as those of Ovid, 

fully executed faC-simile copy has been deposited in the British Museum, 
-where it is ranged among the Additional MSS. under the number 90(37. 



40 FOREIGN BOOKS. 

Lucan, wliom he terms ^'poeta veteranus/" Lucretius^ 
and Homer, and he speaks even of these two latter poets 
as if he were Avell acquainted with their works.* In his 
tract de OrthogrcqMa, with Virgil and Ovid, he quotes 

* The way in which Bede speaks of these two writers scarcely leaves 
l-oom for doubt that the Anglo-Saxon scholars read them in the original 
languages. In the printed edition of his treatise de Arte Metrica (Opera, 
torn. i. p. 42), he speaks of the character of " Lucretii Carmina," and in the 
same tract, on another occasion (p. 38), he quotes a line, when speaking of 
the quantity which Lucretius gives to the word aqua— 

Quse calidum faciunt aqum tactum atque vaporem. 

This line is found ia Lucret. de Her. Nat. VI. 869, and does not seem to 
be quoted by any of the grammarians. Moreover, cui-iously enough, the 
word aquas itself is a mere gloss for laticis, and is found only in this 
quotation of Bede, and therefore seems to have been an error of the 
manuscript which that scholar used. It may be remarked, that many of 
Bede's observations, in the tract here quoted, are extremely judicious. 

With regard to Homer, Bede quotes him for the quantity which he gene- 
rally gives to a short final syllable that falls at the beginning of a foot, and 
in a manner that seems to imply that he read the poet in Greek (de Arte 
Met. ib. p. 27). We might bring many passages together which seem almost 
to prove that Homer continued to be read in the schools till the end of the 
thirteenth century, when the older system of school learning was thrown out 
by Aristotle, and the new philosophy-course. In the curious fabliau (of the 
thirteenth century), published by M. Jubinal in his valuable edition of the 
works of Rutebeuf, entitled " The Battle of the Seven Arts," where the old 
and new system are drawn up in combat against each other, we have the 
following enumeration of the principal books read in the ancient grammar- 
course, which are identical with those read by the Anglo-Saxons as above 
stated, with this exception, that the classical writers are here rather more 
numerous in proportion to the others. Aristotle meets Grammar in the 
thick of the battle— 

Aristote, qui fu a pi^, Aristotle, who was on foot. 

Si fist ch^oir Gramaire enverse. Knocked Grammar down flat. 

Lors i a point mesire Perse, Then there rode up master Persius, 

Dant Juvenal et dant Orasce, Dan Juvenal and Dan Horace, 

Virgile, Lucain, et Etasce, Virgil, Lucan, and Statius, 

Et S^dule, Propre, Prudence, And Sedulius, Prosper, Prudentius, 

Arator, Omer, et Terence : Arator, Homer, and Terence : 

Tuit chaplerent sor Aristote, They all fell upon Aristotle, 

Qui fu fers com chastel sor mote. Who was as bold as a castle on a hill. 
(Juh'maVs Rutel/etff, ii. 436J 



FOREIGN BOOKS. 41 

lioracGj Terence, Laberius, Varro, Cornelius Severus, 
Macer, Pacuvius, and Lucilius, but he may have taken 
some of these only at second hand. Aldhelm, in his 
prose introduction to the ^nigmata^ quotes Virgil, 
Juvenal, whom he calls lyricus, Persius, and Lucan, with 
Prosper and Arator. Alcuin also, in his grammatical and 
rhetorical tracts, brings frequent examples from Virgil, 
Horace, Terence, Juvenal, and Lucan, 

8. The authors here enumerated, studied in a right 
spirit, were quite sufficient to have given the Anglo-Saxon 
scholars a correct and pure taste in Latin jioetry. But 
imfortunately they imbibed jDrejudices even at the foun- 
tain head. At Rome, the classical writers had long ceased 
to be popular; for the zeal which often led the Christians, 
in their estimation of the sentiment, into an injudicious 
dei^reciation of the language when adorned only by its 
own beauties, had already condemned them to that neglect 
under which many of them were perishing. Those which 
are preserved we owe, in a great measure, to the gramma- 
rians who flourished in the latter days of the empire, such 
as Priscian and Donatus, who, by their continual quota- 
tions, gave some of them a certain value in the eyes of 
men who made those grammarians an important part of 
their studies. It is almost solely in grammatical treatises, 
that we find these authors quoted during the age which 
produced the principal Latin writers among the Anglo- 
Saxons, although most of the Anglo-Latin poets were con- 
tinually endeavouring to imitate them. Aldhelm, it is true^ 
quotes Virgil more than once in his prose treatise deLaude 
Virffinitatis,B.nd Alcuin quotes him sometimes in his letters, 
though he speaks of him in a very disparaging tone. We 
are told by an anonymous, but ancient, writer of his life, 
that Alcuin, " having in his youth read the books of the 
ancient philosophers and the lies of Virgil,^' as he ad- 



42 DEPRECIATION OF OLD WRITERS. 

vanced in years^ came to a more sober judgment^ and 
would neither hear them himself, nor permit his scholars 
to read them; — "The sacred poets,'^ said he, "are 
enough for you ; ye have no need to pollute yourselves 
with the luxurious eloquence of Virgil's language."* 
— and he severely scolded one of his scholars, named 
Sigulf, because he had been discovered reading that poet 
in private. The story cannot be true in detail, because 
Alcuin quotes Virgil by name in his later letters ; but it 
shows us clearly, that, in the latter part of the eighth 
century, and in the ninth, when this life was probably 
written, the reading of the classic poets was not gene- 
rally countenanced, although they were still believed to 
possess beauties which might fascinate the mind, and 
there were persons who still persisted in seeking them 
out. This, indeed, continued to be the case throughout 
the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period, because they were 
always read in conjunction with the grammarians in the 
schools. At a later date than the age of which we have 
been speaking, the historian of the Monastery of Ely 
declaims against " the fables of the Gentiles," which, 
" painted and dressed in rhetorical figures,^' were then read 
in the schools, and declares that he was moved with the 
emulation of writing the acts and sayings of the saints for 
the honour and glory of Christ, in order to supply their 
place, t 

* Legerat isdem vir Domini libros juvenis antiquorum Philosoplionuii, 
Virgiliique mendacia, quss nolebat jam ipse nee audire, neque discipulos 
siTOs legere, " siifficiunt," inquiens, " divini poetse vobis, nee egetis luxu- 
riosa sermonis Virgilii vos pollui facundia." — Vita Alcuini, in the first vol. 
of his works, p. Ixvi. 

f Cumque gentilium figmenta, sive delirameuta, cum omni studio videa- 
mus composita, coloribus rhetoricis ornata et quasi quodammodo depicta, 
categoricis syllogismis et argumentationibus circixmfulta et corroborata, in 
gymnasiis et scholis publice celebrataet cumlaude recitata, dignum duximus 
lit sanctorum dicta et facta describantur, et descripta ad laudem et honorem 



ANGLO-LATIN WRITERS. 43 

9. The Anglo-Saxon scholars naturally took chiefly for 
their models in poetry the works of the Christian poets 
which recur so often in their manuscrij)ts^ and it might 
well be expected that the imitators of writers who were 
already far removed from classic eloquence and purity 
of style, Avould themselves sink still lower in the scale. 
Several circumstances joined their influence in vitiating the 
style of the Anglo-Saxon writers. The narrow partiality of 
Theodore, Adrian, and their scholars, for the study of 
Greek,* had given a wrong turn to their literary taste ; 
and this appears in the multitude of Greek words and 
expressions which they grafted upon the Latin language, 
so as to render their writings sometimes quite unin- 
telligible. The imitations of the classical writers Avliich 
appear in their poetry, are, as is too often the case in 
later times, little better than the stringing together of so 
many old phrases, or the use of a certain word, not 
because it is itself appropriate, but because some one of 
the old poets had used it in a similar position. They at 
the same time fell into an error committed more or less 
by imitators in every age ; they chose, in preference to 
all others, those expressions, or words, or uses of words, 
which ought not to be imitated, being exceptions to 

Christi referaatur, etc. Historia Eliensis, in Gale's Scriptores, p, 463. 
This history was -written at an early date. Does the wi-iter allude to the 
Saxon schools in the neighbouring town of Cambridge ? 

* The partiality for the study of Greek is exhibited in the following curious 
enumeration of chai-acteristics of different nations, preserved in an Anglo- 
Saxon manuscript of the ninth century CCalig. A. xv ; fol. 122, y°.) — Sapi- 
entia Grsecorum, invidia Judseorum, superbia Romanorum, largitas Longo- 
bardorum, sobrietas Gothorum, elevatio Francorum, gula Gallorum, ira 
Brittonum, stultitia Saxonum, libido Scottorum, crudelitas Pictorum. — It is 
very desirable that such lists as this, written at different periods and among 
different people, should be collected together — they would give us a curious 
view of the history of national character. A similar list, written in the 
thirteenth century, will be found in Rel/quice Antiqzfcc, No. 1, p. 5, 
(Pickering, 1839.) 



44 THE ANGLO-LATIN POETS. 

rules, and which we consider allowable in the pure Latin 
writers, simply because we believe that when they wrote, 
they would not have taken liberties which were not 
allowable; and these expressions, because they were strange 
and uncommon, they repeated over and over again with 
lavish profusion. The character of their native poetry 
led them also to affect a style, both in verse and prose, 
which in their Latin is often intolerably pompous and 
inflated. To all these sins we must add another: the 
early Anglo-Latin poets delighted in nothing more than 
ingenious conceits, enigmatical expressions, puns, and 
alliteration. Thus Alcuin, to quote one example among 
a thousand, although he certainly knew perfectly well the 
meaning of the name of his countrymen, yet in his metri- 
cal history of the See of York, when describing their 
condition before the introduction of Christianity, he cannot 
let slip the opportunity of telling us that they then 
deserved their name of Saxons, because they were as hard 
as 



Buritiam propter dicti eognomine SaxL 
Aldhelm, in addition to his love of Greek words, fills his 
poems with alliterative lines like the following — 

Pallida ^urpureo j^ingis qui flore yireta. 
and again— 

Et^otiora cupit, quam ^ulset ^^ectine chordas 
Queis ^salmista plus ^sallebat cantibus olim. 

Alcuin, in the following initial lines of a short poem^ 
gives us an extraordinary specimen of cutting up and 
dividing words, which was also not uncommonly prac- 
tised by the continental Latin poets, from his time to 
the beginning of the tenth century — 

En tuus Albinus, sffivis ereptus ab undis, 
Venerat altithrono nunc migerante Deo< 



45 



Te cupiens appel- peregrinus -lare camoenis, 

OCori[d]on! Cori[d]oiil dulcis amice satis,* 



10. Alcuin and Aldhelm were the chief Anglo-Latin 
poets of this period. Aldhelm possessed all the defects 
above enumerated. He was a great imitator of the an- 
cients ', he was a celebrated Greek scholar, and he filled his 
writings with foreign words and clumsy compounds ; he 
was also a lover and composer of Anglo-Saxon verse^ 
and he shows a deeply rooted taste for alliteration and 
pompous diction ; and in addition to these defects we 
see in his writings generally a bad choice of words, with 
harsh sentences, and a great deficiency in true delicacy 
and harmony .t In a word, Aldhelm's writings, popular 
as they once were, exhibit a very general want of good 
taste. For an example of this, we need only cite one of 
the embellishments of his metrical treatise de Laude Vir- 
ginum, where he tells the story of St. Scholastica, how, 
when she had failed by her arguments and persuasions in 
prevailing on her brother to embrace Christianity, she 
fell on her knees in prayer by his side 3 how a fearful 
storm immediately burst over the house, and how the 

* Alcuinus " Ad Discipulum,^' Poems, p. 235, in his works. Abbo, in 
the beginning of the tenth century, inserts que in the middle of a com- 
pounded word, for the sake of metre, as ocquecidens and inquesulam, for 
occidensque and insidamqiie, 

t William of Malmsbury, himself a good scholar for his age, has left us 
a curious estimate of Aldhelm's character, in which he confesses the over- 
pompous style of the Anglo -Latin writers. " Denique Grseci involute, Ro- 
man! splendid^, Angli pompatice dictare solent. Id in omnibus antiquis 
chartis est animadvertere, quantum quibusdam verbis abtrusis et ex Grseco 
petitis delectentur. Moderatius tamen se agit Aldelmus, nee nisi perraro 
et necessario verba ponit exotica. AUegat Catholicos sensus sermo facundus, 
et violentissimas assertiones exornat color rhetoricus. Quem si perfecte 
legeris, et ex acumine Grsecum putabis, et ex nitore Romanum jurabis, et 
expompa Anglum intelliges." Vit. Aldelm. p. 339. If this writer alludes to 
the monastic charters given under the Saxon Kings, they are certainly 
written in the strangest "jargon" that it is possible to conceive, and Ald- 
helm is purity itself in comparison with them. Perhaps cJiariis only means 
books. 



46 alcuin's poetry. 

unbelieving brother was convinced by the miracle. A 
better poet would have dwelt upon the terrors of the 
storm — on its effect upon the house which held Scholastica 
and her brother — and on the qualms which the roaring of 
the thunder and the flashing of the forked lightnings 
struck into his breast. But Aldhelm loses sight of his 
immediate subject in his eagerness to describe a 7'eal 
storm ; it is true he tells us there was wind, and thunder, 
and lightning, and that they affected both heaven and 
earth, but he finds out that there was rain also, and that 
the earth was moistened, and he goes out of his way to 
calculate its effects in swelling the rivers and flooding 
the distant vallies, all which circumstances have nothing 
to do with the virgin saint or her unbelieving kinsman. 
Aldhelm certainly describes a storm, but it is not a 
storm made for the occasion. The lines, taken by them- 
selves, are comparatively a favourable specimen of the 
poet's talents— 

Mo.x igitur coelum nimboso turbine totum 
Et convexa poll nigrescunt sethere furvo ; 
Murmura vasta sonant flammis commista coruscis, 
Et tremuit tellus magno fremebuncla fragore ; 
Humicla rorifluis humectant vellera guttis, 
Irrigat et terram tenebrosis imbribus aer, 
Complentur valles, et largafluenta redundant. 

11. Alcuin has, on the whole, more simplicity and less 
pretension in his poetry than his predecessor Aldhelm, and 
so far he is more pleasing ; but, unfortunatel)?^, where the 
latter Avas turgid and bombastic, the former too often runs 
into the opposite extreme of being flat and spiritless. His 
style is seen to best advantage in his calm details of 
natural scenery. The description of the city of York, at 
this early period one of the most frequented commercial 
towns in England, is a fair specimen of the beauties of this 
poet ; it possesses a certain degree of elegance and cor- 



ANGLO-LATIN PROSE. 47 

rectness, for whicli we may look in vain among the writ- 
ings of Aldhelm. 

Hanc piscosa suis uudis iaterluit Usa, 
Florigeros ripis prsetendens undique campos : 
Collibus et silvis tellus hinc inde decora, 
Nobilibusque locis habitatio pulchra, salubris, 
Fertilitate sui multos habitura colonos. 
Quo variis populis et regnis undique lecti, 
Spe lucri veniunt, quEerentes divite terra 
Divitias, sedem sibimet, lucrumque, laremque. 

De Fontif. etc. Eborac. v. 30, 

Alcuin wrote much poetry, on various subjects, lives, his- f 
tories, elegies, and epigrams. Perhaps the most favour- 
able specimen of his muse is the elegy on the destruction 
of the monastery of Lindisfarne by the Danes, some parts 
of which are very simple and pleasing. His history of 
the See of York also contains some good passages. 

12. The Latin poets among the Anglo-Saxons were not 
very numerous. During the eighth century, their best 
period, and the earlier part of the ninth, we find, besides 
the two above mentioned, Bede (the universal scholar) 
and Boniface, and a few others, such as TahtAvin, Cuth- 
bert of Hereford, Acca of Hexham, and Athelwolf of Lin- 
disfarne. In the tenth century, Fridegode wrote, in verse, 
the Life of Wilfred, and the Monk Wolstan that of 
Swithin. Henceforward the history of Anglo-Latin poetry 
presents almost a blank, until the formation of a school of 
Latin poets in the twelfth century, some of vdiom ap- 
proached the purity of the Augustan age. 

13. The Latin ^rose writers of the classic ages were 
very little read by the Anglo-Saxons, because they had 
not the same powerful allies in the grammarians to keep 
them in countenance. This circumstance explains Avhat 
has frequently been observed by the continental writers, 
that the Christians from the fourth or fifth century down 
to the tenth and eleventh, wrote much purer Latin 



48 EPISTLES OF BONIFACE AND ALCUIN, 

in their poetry, with all their faults, than in their prose 
compositions. The great luminaries of the Anglo-Saxon 
church employed their pens chiefly on theology, and science 
as far as it was then studied j and their writings, not 
attractive by their language, offer little interest to the 
general reader. The theological writings of Bede, Boni- 
face, and Alcuin, which consist chiefly of commentaries on 
the Scriptures, and of controversial tracts on questions 
then agitated, exhibit immense power of mind, disciplined 
by the most profound study, and characterized by much 
independence of thought. Aldhelm sacrifices too much to 
rhetorical ornament, and is the least readable of them all. 
We have, however, two classes of Anglo-Latin prose liter- 
ature during the Saxon period, which make amends for the 
apparent deficiency in some of the others. 

14. Boniface and Alcuin have left us a large body of 
familiar letters, which, from the many early transcripts of 
them that remain, seem to have been the delight of our 
forefathers during the ninth century, and which deserve to 
be better known than they are, even at the present day. In 
these letters, although the same subject of paramount im- 
portance which gave rise to the severer writings casts a 
shade of character over the whole, yet at times the theo- 
logian and scholar throws off the dulness of scholastic 
erudition, shows himself the attentive correspondent, and 
the affectionate friend, and amid graver business indulges 
in playful comphments and sallies of wit. Occasionally the 
present sent by a friend from a distant land will produce a 
joke or an epigram ; at one time the follies of contempo- 
raries will draw a smile, or even a tear -, while, at another, 
the intelligence of the loss of a friend or the devastation 
by barbarous enemies of some beloved spot, is received 
with the pathetic elegance of heart-felt sorrow. The cor- 
respondence of Alcuin is peculiarly lively, and his letters 



CORRESPONDENCE OF BONIFACE, ETC. 49 

are interesting to us in more points of view tlian one. In 
them, the fearful struggles in Italy and the south of France, 
between the iron-armed warriors of the west and the Sara- 
cens who had conquered Africa and Spain, and the expe- 
ditions of Charlemagne to curb the Saxons and other 
tribes who paid but an uncertain obedience to his sway, 
events on which we are accustomed to look through the 
misty atmosphere of romance, till they seem little better 
than fables, are told as the news of yesterday ; and the 
warrior whom we are in the habit of picturing to our 
minds, sheathed in iron and stern in look, employed only in 
bruising the heads of his enemies, or oppressing his friends, 
not less than the hoary-headed priest whom we imagine 
in flowing robes, with calm and reverend mien, preaching 
salvation to herds of wild men but just emerging from the 
ignorance of pagan superstition, stands himself before us 
suddenly transformed into the man of taste and the elegant 
scholar. It is thus that, when we abstract ourselves en- 
tirely from the outward consideration of dress and posi- 
tion, from the ever-varying attributes of age and country, 
these letters teach us the instructive lesson that the mind, 
when cultivated, is much the same in all ages, that it is 
capable of the same feelings, the same tastes, and the same 
intelligence, and that these show themselves naturally 
under the same forms, — in a word, that the old saying of 
the poet — 

Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt, 
is true when we apply it to the mind in general, and when 
we take into consideration diversity of time and person, 
as well as difference of place. 

15. The Anglo-Saxons have left us but few regular his- 
tories. The Church History of Bede, the less important 
works of Asser and Athelweard, and two or three monastic 
chronicles, added to the well-known Anglo-Saxon Chroni- 

* E 



50 ANGLO-SAXON BIOGRAPHIES. 

cle, are nearly all we have. But the deficiency in this 
respect is amply compensated by an abundance of bio- 
graphy, a class of writing for which our Saxon forefathers 
seem to have had an especial partiality. Scarcely a scholar 
or a churchman of any consequence quitted the mortal 
stage, but instantly some one of his immediate friends, or 
of his attendants through life, consigned his history to 
writing, and told his reminiscences, and not unfrequently 
repeated much that he had heard from the mouth of him 
whose biography he had undertaken. These lives are 
peculiarly interesting ; like Bede's history, they frequently 
exhibit the credulity of their authors ; but the luminaries 
of the Anglo-Saxon church did not live immured in clois- 
ters ; they were stirring men in the world, the counsellors 
of princes, not only attending them in the cabinet, but 
sometimes at their side even in the field ; and their memoirs 
are full of contemporary anecdotes of political history as 
well as of private manners. By these means, in the case of 
some of the Anglo-Saxon scholars, we have as good mate- 
rials for their lives, as for that of many a literary character 
of the last century. 

16. It is hardly necessary to say that these lives are more 
remarkable for their matter than for their language. In the 
earlier ages the disciples of the great scholars seem to have 
written much worse Latin than their masters ; thus nothing 
can be more harsh than the style of Eddius, in his life of 
Wilfred, written at the begining of the eighth century. 
With the ninth century the Latin school began to decline 
rapidly, and we have few writers of talent at a later period. 
King Alfred complained that in the time of his youth, 
soon after the middle of this century, there were no 
^' masters " to teach him, that is, there were no successors to 
Bede, and Archbishop Egbert, and Alcuin. That the ninth 
century was illiterate must be altogether a mistaken no- 



AGE OF GLOSSES. 51 

tion, for in it was written the largest portion of the Anglo- 
Saxon manuscripts which are now left, of the older and con- 
temporary Latin writers. But the vernacular literature, 
which had formerly been known only as one that was sung 
and preserved in the memory, and perhaps seldom written, 
seems to have been now gaining ground, and to have been 
making hasty advances towards establishing as strong a 
claim to the title of " book-learning," as the Latin literature 
to which that term had been previously given. Such, in 
fact, was the position which it had gained in the tenth cen- 
tury, when therefore we may suppose that literature had 
become much more generally diffused. The earlier part 
of the ninth century may be aptly called the Age of 
Glosses. It is apparently in manuscripts of that period 
that we find the greatest number of interlinear translations 
of the words of the Latin writers into Anglo-Saxon, a sure 
sign of the decay of Latin scholarship. The book which 
is most frequently glossed in this manner, is Aldhelm's 
prose treatise cle Laude Virginitatis, which, being full of 
Greecisms, and having been written principally for the 
edification of the ladies, whom we cannot suppose to have 
been as well skilled in Greek as in Latin, we find accom- 
panied by glosses, sometimes in Latin and sometimes in 
Anglo-Saxon. The other books which are found most 
frequently glossed are the Gospels and the Psalms, with 
the poems of Prudentius, Prosper, and Sedulius.* The 
Age of Glosses naturally led, in the latter part of the 

* Of five MSS. of Aldhelm, in the King's Library in the British Museum , 
two are attributed, with apparent reason, to the eighth century, and neither 
of these are glossed in Anglo-Saxon, though one of them is most copiously 
glossed in Latin. Two are written in a hand not more modern than the 
middle of the ninth century, and are glossed here and there in Anglo- 
Saxon. The fifth is of the latter part of the ninth century, or, perhaps, of 
the beginning of the tenth, and is -very full of glosses in Anglo-Saxon. The 
poets are generally glossed in the earlier part of the ninth century ; the 
Gospel sometimes at a much earlier period; and the Psalms are found 

E? 



52 KING ALFRED. 

ninth century, to the Age of translations, which opened 
under the reign of the immortal Alfred. 

§ IV. The Anglo-Saxon Prose Writings. 
1. Our chief authority for the private character of King- 
Alfred is the historian Asser, his contemporary and friend, 
a monk of Bangor, in Wales. Asser's testimony is, as 
might be expected, extremely valuable and interesting; 
but he indulges too much in trifles, often expressing great 
astonishment at things which were by no means extraor- 
dinarjr, and making discoveries of what was not new; 
and he frequently judges of the monarch of the West 
Saxons as though he were speaking of one of his fellow 
monks. In those days, the first quality of a King was not 
necessarily the being able to read and wa^ite. Alfred appears, 
from his infancy, to have received a princely education. 
He was carefully instructed in, and habituated to, hunting 
and other royal exercises, and from an early age he was 
made to commit to memory the national poetry, to which 
he was never tired of listening. It was his love for this 
class of literature, and the temptation of a handsomely 
written manuscript offered to him by his mother, that 
encouraged the royal child to overcome the difficulty of 
learning to read.* This he did not attempt until his twelfth 
year; and Asser, probably with little justice, attributes 
this supposed tardiness to his parents' negligence.f 

glossed as late as the begining of the eleventh, and even in the twelfth cen- 
tury, as in the instance of a superb manuscript in the Library of Trinity 
College, Cambridge, R. 17, 1. 

* Sed Saxonica poemata die noctuque solers auditor relatu allorum ssepis- 
sime audiens docibilis memoriter retinebat, in omni venatoria arte industrius 
venator, incessabiliter laborat non in vanum. . . . Cum ergo quodam die 
mater sua sibi et fratribusquendam Saxonicum poeniaticfe artis librum quern 
in manuhabebat ostenderet, etc. Asser, Vita JElfr. ed. M. Parker,]}. 7. 

t Sed, proh dolor 1 indigna suorum parentum et nutritorum incuria 
usque adxii. getatis annum aut eo amplius illiteratus remansit. Td. ib. 



NEGLECT OF THE LATIN TONGUE. 53 

2. In AlfrecFs time the study of the Latm language had 
fallen so much into neglect, that even the priests could 
scarcely translate the church service, which they were in 
the constant habit of reading. The king himself regretted 
that he had not learnt Latin until a late period of life ; 
but his sorrow was greater for the general ignorance of his 
countrymen than for his own backwardness. He then, as 
he tells us in his preface to the Pastorale, looked back with 
regret to the flourishing state of learning in England at an 
earlier period, " and how they came hither from abroad to 
seek wisdom and doctrine in this land, whereas we must 
now get it from without, if we will have it at all.^'* He tells 
us that when he ascended the throne there were few persons 
south of the Humber who could translate from Latin into 
English, and he did not believe that they were much 
better provided on the other side of that river. "I also 
called to mind,^' says the royal writer, " how I saw, before 
it was all spoiled and burnt, that the churches throughout 
the whole English nation stood filled with treasures and 
Avith books, and also with a great multitude of God^s ser- 
vants, yet they reaped very little of the fruit of those 
books, because they could understand nothing of them, 
since they were not written in their own native tongue."t 
He then proceeds to express his wonder that the great 
scholars who had formerly lived in this island had not 
translated the Latin books into English ; but he attributes 
this to the little expectation which they could ever have 

* And hu man uton borde wisdomG and lave liider on land solite, and hu 
we hi nu sceoldon ute begitan, gif we Li habban sceoldon. Alfred, Pref. to 
Greyory's Pastorale, ed. M. ParJcer. 

f t)age-mundeic eac liuic ge-seab aer bam )'e liit eal for-heregod weere and 
for-bserned, liu ha circan geond eal Angel-cyn stodon ma'Sma and boca ge- 
fylled, and eac micel majniu Godes heawa, and \>a. swiSe 13'tle feorme hara 
bocawiston, for^am he hi liira nan \>mg on-gitan ne mihton, forj'am ]e hi 
nisron on hira agenge heode a-writene. li. 



54 ALFRED S TRANSLATIONS. 

harboured^ that good scholarship would decline so much, 
that they should no longer be understood in the originals. 

3. Alfred was ambitious of remedying both these evils, 
of supplying his country at the same time with scholars 
and with translations. With a view to the first of these 
objects he invited learned men from abroad, and among 
the rest Grimbald, whom he made abbot of Win- 
chester, and John of Corvei, whom he in like manner 
placed over the new monastery of Athelney. Among the 
scholars patronised by Alfred, we must also reckon the 
erudite but free-spoken John Scotus, famous for his 
knoMdedge of Greek, and for his severity and sourness 
of manners, by which, according to the story which was 
afterwards prevalent, he at last so provoked his scholars, 
that they fell upon him with their writing instruments and 
stabbed him to death. Alfred himself led the way in trans- 
lating the Latin books into Anglo-Saxon. Among the 
works which M^e owe to his pen, the most important are 
translations of the Pastorale of Gregory, destined more 
particularly for the use of his clergy, — of the treatise of 
Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae, one of the most 
popular Latin books in the middle ages, and which was 
often translated into almost every language of Europe, — 
and of the Ancient History of Orosius, and the English 
Church History of Bede. Other translations were made 
by his order, as that of the Dialogues of Gregory by 
Werfred bishop of Worcester;* and no doubt many 
others were eager to follow so illustrious an example. 

4. We must not, however, let ourselves be led by the 
greatness of his exertions to estimate Alfred's own learn- 
ing at too high a rate. In " Grammar " his skill was 
never very profound, because he had not been instructed 

* W. Malmsb. p. 45. (Ed. 1601). Ingulph. p. 870. ib. 



ALFRED'S LEARNING. 55 

in it in his youth ; and the work of Boethius had to un- 
dergo a singular process before the royal translator com- 
menced his ojierations. Sighelm, bishop of Shirburn, 
one of Alfred^s chosen friends, was employed to turn the 
original text of Boethius " into plainer words,"- — " a 
necessary labour in those days," sa^^^s William of Malms- 
bury, "although at present (in the 12th century) it seems 
somewhat ridiculous."* And in a similar manner, before 
he undertook the translation of the Pastorale, he had it 
explained to him — the task was perhaps executed some- 
times by one, sometimes by another — by Archbishop 
Plegmund, by Bishop Asser, and by his ^'mass-priests" 
Grimbald and John.f But Alfred's mind was great and 
comprehensive ; and we need not examine his scholarship 
in detail in order to justify or to enhance his rej)utation. 
His translations are well written ; and whatever may have 
been the extent of his knowledge of the Latin language, they 
exhibit a general acquaintance with the subject superior 
to that of the age in which he lived. Whenever their 
author added to his original, in order to explain allusions 
which he thought would not be understood, he exhibits a 
just idea of ancient history and fable, differing widely 
from the distorted popular notions which were prevalent 
then and at a subsequent period in the vernacular litera- 
ture.! There is one apparent exception to this observa- 



* Libros Boetliii .... planioribus verbis elucidavit illis diebus 

labore necessario, nostris ridiciilo, Sed enim jussu regis factum est, ut 
levius ab eodem in Anglicum transferretur sermonem. — W. Malms, p. 248. 

t Swa swa ic Li ge-leornode aet Plegmunde minum sercebiscope, and set 
Assere minum biscope, and set Grimbolde minum msesse-preoste, and set 
Jolianne minum msesse-preoste. — Preface to the Pastorale^ 

X It is observable througliout the middle ages, that what is stated cor- 
rectly and judiciously in the Latin writers appears most grossly incorrect 
and capriciously distorted whenever we meet with it in the vernacular 



5b ALFRED S LEARNING. 

tion. In translating the second metre of the fifth book of 
BoethiuS;, begmning — 

Puro clarum lumine Phoebum 
Melliflui canit oris Homerus, — 

Alfred has added an explanation which shows that Virgil 
was then much better known than Homer. " Homer,'^ 
says he, '^ the good poet^ who was best among the Greeks : 
he was Virgil's teacher : this Virgil was best among the 
Latins."* Alfred probably means no more than that 
Virgil imitated Homer : but in the metrical version of the 
metres of Boethius, also attributed to Alfred, the matter 
is placed quite in another light, and Homer not only be- 
comes Virgil's teacher, but his friend also. 

Omerus webs Homer was 

east mid Crecum in the east among the Greeks 

on J>8em leod-scipe in that nation 

leo>a craeftgast, the most skilful of poets, 

Fii'gilies Virgil's 

freond and lareow, friend and teacher, 

hcem mseran sceope to that great bard 

magistra betst. the best of masters. 
{Metres of BoelJi. ed. Fox, p. 137.) 

We will, however, willingly relieve the Anglo-Saxon mon- 
arch from all responsibility for this error, which seems to 
have arisen from the misconstruction of Alfred's words by 
some other person who was the author of the prosaic 

writings of the same period, a proof of the slow passage of knowledge from 
one class of society to another. In the metrical French romance of Troy 
(12th century) which is founded on the pseudo-Dares, ■\Ve are told that 
Homer wrote mere fables which he knew were not true ; and, accordingly, 
when he recited his work to his citizens, most of them set their faces against 
it, and there arose two factions at Athens : but in the end the poet had 
most influence, and succeeding in obtaining the general sanction of his ver- 
sion of the story, to the disadvantage of that of Dares. 

* Seah Omerus se goda sceop, J'e mid Crecum selest wses : se waes Fir- 
gilies lareow, se Firgilius was mid Leedeuwarum selest* — Alfred's Boethius, 
ed, Cardale, p. 327. 



LEARNED FOREIGNERS. 5'J 

verses that have hitherto gone under his name. Several 
reasons combine iii making us believe that these were 
not written 1)y Alfred : they are little more than a 
transposition of the words of his own prose, with here 
and there a few additions and alterations in order to 
make alliteration : the compiler has shown his want of 
skill on many occasions ; he has^, on the one hand, turned 
into metre both Alfred's preface (or at least imitated 
it), and his introductory chapter, which certainly had no 
claim to that honour ; whilst, on the other hand, he has 
overlooked entirely one of the metres, which appears to 
have escaped his eye as it lay buried among King Alfred's 
prose.* The only manuscript containing this metrical 
version which has yet been met with, appears, from the 
fragments of it preserved from the fire which endan- 
gered the whole Cottonian Library, to have been written 
in the tenth century. 

5. The pohcy of Alfred in calling into England foreign 
scholars, was pursued, if not successively, at least from 
time to time, during the whole of the century which fol- 
lowed, and even till the time of the Norman conquest. 
Atlielstan, in the early part of the tenth century, was 
a patron of learning as well as a great king, and not un- 
worthy to sit on Alfred's throne. In return, his fame was 
spread abroad, and handed down to his posterity by the 
scholars whom he had encouraged ; and we learn from 
William of Malmsbury and others, that his actions were 
the subject of more than one Latin poem. Of Dunstan, 
it has been said that he was second only to Alfred himself 
in his endeavours to raise learning and science in Eng- 
land.t Oswald, made Archbishop of York in 9/1, who 

* The full discussion of this question is reserved for another occasion, 
t Ipse artium liberalium in tota insula post regem Alfredum excitatcJr 
mirilicus. — W, Malms, p. 56, 



58 DECLINE OF LEARNING. 

had himself been educated at Fleury in France^ followed 
closely in the steps of Dunstan, and it is noted of him in 
the old chronicles " that he invited over into this country 
literary men/'* The same may be said of Wulstan, another 
of Dunstan's friends ; he brought Abbo of Fleury, who in- 
troduced into England " much fruit of science/' and whose 
efforts were more particularly directed to the regeneration 
of the schools ; for at that time (the latter part of the tenth 
century) we are told that learning [i. e. the study of Latin 
literature) had again fallen into universal decay.f In the 
eleventh century, under Edward the Confessor, when 
Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, founded a school at 
Waltham, we find him also seeking a foreign scholar 
to direct it.t But the frequent mention in the early 
historians of such incidents, is a proof that not even 
the power and wisdom of Alfred could restore a state 
of things which had, in the natural order of events, 
passed away, and which had been founded on feelings 
that no longer existed. Foreign learning was now no 
novelty to the Anglo-Saxons, and the excitement which 
alone had pushed into being the profound scholars of the 
age of Bede and Alcuin, ran in other channels. Al- 
fred's own example aided in spreading the already preva- 
lent taste for Anglo-Saxon writings, which must also have 
been increased by the tendency of his schools, in which 
the English language and the national poetry held an equal 
place with the study of the learned languages, 

6. From the numerous manuscripts which still remain, 

* Advocavit in patriam Hteratos homines. — Polychron. p. 267. 

f Ad scliolas regendas .... quoniam omnis fere Uteraturse studium et 
scliolarum usus per Angliam in dessuetudinem venerat et soporem. — His- 
toria Ramesiensis , in Gale, p. 400. Umis fuit Abbo Floriacensis monachns, 
qui multani scietiticefrugem Anglise invexit. — Malms, de Pontif, p. 370. 

X Vita Haroldi, in the Chroiiiques Anglo -Normandes, p. 161. Coiif. 
Eund. p. 157. 



VERNACULAR WRITERS. 59 

and from the known causes of destruction, we have every 
reason to believe that there did once exist a very large body 
of Anglo-Saxon vernacular writings. But the name of one 
man only, after the days of Alfred, who wrote much in his 
native tongue, has come down to us with any degree of cer- 
tainty 5 and that was the grammarian Alfric. In historians 
of the twelfth century, we find some indications of Anglo- 
Saxon writings of a much earlier date, chiefly translations 
from Scripture, but they rest on somewhat doubtful author- 
ity, as before that time it had become fashionable to put 
great names to spurious books. Aldhelm translated the 
Book of Psalms ; and Bede is said to have made an Anglo- 
Saxon version of the Gospel of St. John.* To the latter 
scholar, indeed, the follomng curious semi-Saxon verses, 
recovered with some other fragments from imminent de- 
struction by the antiquarian zeal of Sir Thomas Phillipps,t 
seem to ascribe other Anglo-Saxon writings. 

Sanctus Beda was i-boren Saint Bede was born 

her on Breotone mid us, here in Britain with us, 

and he wisliche and he wisely 

.... a-wende, .... translated, 

"Sset \>eo Englisc leoden that the English people 

Jjurli weren i-lei'de, were thereby instructed, 
and he teo ci. . . . ten un-wreih, and he the .... solved, 

\>e [we] questiuns hotej?, that we call questions, 

j^a derne digelnesse the secret obscurity 

* W. Malmsb. p. 23, (ed. 1601). 

t " Fi-agment of jElfric's Grammar, ^Ifric's Glossary, and a poem on 
the Soul and Body, in the orthography of the 12th century : discovered 
among the Archives of Worcester Cathedral, by Sir T. Phillipps, Bart. 
Edited by Sir T. P. London, 1838," folio. These fragments of a valuable 
MS. of the twelfth century, were found in the cover of a book, for the 
strengthening of which they had been used. Many words and parts of 
words have been lost by the mutilation of the edges of the leaves, which 
renders the fragment here given more obscure than it would otherwise be. 
It has been attempted to supply the deficiencies in some part by the addi- 
tions between parentheses. 



60 



VERNACULAR WRITERS. 



}'e de[ore-]wurtlie is. 

^Ifric abbod, 

j'e we Alquia hotej?, 

he was bocare, 

and )?e. . . . bee wende, 

Genesis, Exodos, 

Utronomius, 

Numerus, Leveticus. 

t'i[urh] J?eos weren i-lserde 

ure leoden on Englisc ; 

l^et weren J^eos biscop[es] 

[Jje] bodeden Cristendom : 

Wilfred of Ripum, 

Johan of Beoferlai, 

Cu]7b[ert] of Dunholme, 

Oswald of Wireceastre, 

Egwin of Heoveshame, 

iEld[helm] of Malraesburi, 

Swijj^un, >E>elwold, 

[and] Aidan, 

Biern of Wincsestre, 

[Cwichejlm of RofecEestre, 

Sanctus Dunston, 

and S. ^Elfeih of Cantoreburi : 

jjcos Ise [reden] . . 

ure leodan on Englisc : 

Nses deorc heore lilit, 

ac hit fccire glod. 

N[u is] J'eo leore for-leten, 

and Kt folc is for-loren, 

nu beo}' ojre leoden 

}>eo lEe[ren] ure folc, 

and feole of l^en lor-)?eines 

losise}', and Sset folc for]? mid. 



which is very precious. 

Alfric the abbot, 

whom we call Alquin, 

he was a scholar, 

and translated the .... books, 

Genesis, Exodus, 

Deuteronomy, 

Numbers, Leviticus. 

Through these were taught 

our people in English ; 

they were these bishops, 

who preached Christendom : 

Wilfrid of Ripon, 

John of Beverley, 

Cuthbert of Durham, 

Oswald of Worcester, 

Egwin of Evesham, 

Aldhelm of Malmsbury, 

Swithin, Athelwold, 

and Aidan, 

Birin of Winchester, 

Quichelm of Rochester, 

Saint Dunstan, 

and St. Elfege of Canterbury : 

these taught 

our people in English : 

their light was not dark, 

but it burnt beautifully. 

Now the doctrine is forsaken, 

and the people ruined, 

now it is another people 

who teach our folk, 

and many of the teachers [them. 

perish, and the people along with 



From the repetition of the assertion that they taught in 
Enghsh, we might be led to suppose that the author of 
these verses^ Avhile lamenting over the fate of the literature 
of his country, then trampled under foot l^y the Normans, 
believed that all the bishops here mentioned had Avritten in 
Anglo-Saxon. Yet many of them lived in the first age 
after the establishment of Christianity in England, and we 



ALPRIC S HOMILIES. 61 

have no other reason whatever for placing them in our 
hst of Anglo-Saxon authors. 

7. After the name of Alfred, that of Alfric stands first 
among the Anglo-Saxon vernacular writers, both for the 
number and the importance of his works. The Heptateuch^ 
which is evidently alluded to in the foregoing verses, is still 
preserved j and in the introduction which precedes the Book 
of Genesis, the writer offers some very judicious observa- 
tions on the general character of Anglo-Saxon translations 
from Latin writers. We there also learn that, in the latter 
part of the tenth century, the Latin language was as gene- 
rally neglected, even by the clergy, as it had been in the days 
of King Alfred.* To extend the knowledge of this language 
was one of the objects of Alfric's exertions, and he wrote 
a grammar, a glossary, and several other books of a simi- 
lar kind. But his fame rests chiefly on another class of 
writings — his Homilies — to which, primarily, we owe the 
attention that has in modern times been shown to the 
literature of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. 

8. When the Anglo-Saxons embraced the Christian 
religion, they naturally received along with it some errors 
which had already gained ground at Rome. The reverence 
with which a people newly emerged from paganism, and 
actuated by a zeal like that which was shown by the early 
Anglo-Saxon converts, must have looked upon their first 
instructors, is a sufiicient excuse even for the deep theolo- 
gians of those first ages, if they did not sift very carefully 
the doctrines which had been delivered to them. But, at 
the same time, the Anglo-Saxons were far removed from 



* Thorpe's Analecta, p. 25. Alfric adds, — " \>a. imgelEe'redan preostas, 
gif hihwset lites understandab" of J^am Lyden b6cum, I^onne J>inc'S him sona 
Jjffit hi magon niEe're hireowas beun." — The xinlearned priests, if they under- 
stand a little of the Latin boo/cs, then they soon conceive the idea that they 
may be great scholars. 



62 ALFRIC'S HOMILIES. 

that slavish dependence on Rome which the Catholic 
system at a later period enjoined. They acted and judged 
with freedom and independence^ and they disputed or con- 
demned unhesitatingly the errors which the Eoraish church 
afterwards continued to introduce. In the numerous 
Anglo-Saxon homilies written^ and in part translated, by 
Alfricj almost every vital doctrine which distinguishes the 
Romish from the Protestant church, meets with a direct 
contradiction. After the Anglo-Norman conquest had 
established in England the Papal power, many copies of 
these homilies were preserved, because, the language be- 
ing not very generally understood by the new comers, 
they were suftered to lie mouldering and neglected on the 
shelves of the monastic libraries, though we still find some 
manuscripts in which the most obnoxious passages have 
been mutilated. But in the heat of religious controversy 
at the period of the Reformation in England, one of Alfric's 
writings was brought forward, which condemned entirely 
the doctrine of transubstantiation as a growing error, and 
this unexpected and powerful ally was embraced exultingly 
by the Protestant champions. " What now is become of 
your boasted argument of apostolical tradition?^' they said 
to their opponents — " see here that the novelties with 
which you charge us are older than the doctrines which 
you oppose to them." The result was, that men like 
Matthew Parker began to make diligent researches in old 
libraries for Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of every descrip- 
tion. 

9. Every branch of literature and science felt more or 
less the effects of the prevailing taste for Anglo-Saxon, 
instead of Latin, writings. At the time when Alfred 
was making his subjects acquainted, by means of his own 
translations, with the ancient history of Rome and the 
early ecclesiastical history of their country, the first foun- 



THE CHRONICLE AND LAWS, 63 

elation was also laid of the famous Anglo-Saxon chronicle. 
Down to the year 981, this chronicle is supposed to have 
been compiled and written by Plegmund archbishop of 
Canterbury, one of Alfred^s learned men. From that period 
the narrative of contemporary events was continued from 
time to time in the Anglo-Saxon tongue by different 
writers, until the entire breaking up of the language in 
the middle of the twelfth century. Equal in importance 
to the chronicle, and similarly written in the Anglo-Saxon 
language, are the laws, with which again the great name 
of Alfred is intimately connected. It was he who first 
arranged and reduced into better order the various imperfect 
collections of legislative regulations, which had been pub- 
lished and acted upon by the different kings who had lived 
before him. The king gives the following simple and natu- 
ral description of the work which he had thus performed. 
" Thus then,^' says he, " I, Alfred the king, gathered to- 
gether and caused to be written down as many of those 
laws which our forefathers held as pleased me, and as 
many as did not please me I threw away, with the advice 
of my witan (the representatives of the nation), and 
ordered them to be held differently. For I dared not ven- 
ture to set many of my own in MTiting, because it was not 
clear to me how much of them might please those who 
come after us. But of such as I found either in the time of 
Ine my kinsman, or of Offa king of Mercia, or of Athel- 
berht who first among the English people received baptism, 
those which seemed to me most just I collected them here, 
and the others I omitted. I, Alfred king of the West- 
Saxons, showed these to all my witan, and they then said 
that it pleased them all well to hold them.'' * The Saxon 
laws were revised, enlarged, and published anew in the 

* Sclimid, Die Gesetze cler Angelsachsen, p. 40. 



64 ANGLO-SAXON SCIENCE. 

Anglo-Saxon language, by many of Alfred's successors, 
and particularly by Athelstan^ Athelred, and Cnut.* 

§ V. Anglo-Saxon Science — the Schools, and Foi'ms of 
Education. 

1. From the time when Sigebert^ before the year 635, 
established a school in his kingdom of East-Anglia, in 
imitation of those which he had seen on the Continent, at 
least till the latter part of the tenth century, although 
knowledge had become more generally diffused, the An- 
glo-Saxons had made no advance in science itself. This 
was a natural consequence of the system which they pur- 
sued. The reverence with which the converts in the ear- 
lier ages had learned to regard everything that came from 
Rome, gradually degenerated into implicit confidence in 
the books of science which were imported from thence, 
until it became almost an article of faith to decide all diffi- 
cult questions by their authority. Education was thus 
less a discipline of the mind, (which, with all its defects, it 
certainly was at a later period when western Europe had 
felt the influence of the Arabian school) than a mere adop- 
tion of just so much science, right or wrong, as had been 
handed down from previous ages. Even when men like 
Bede wrote elementary treatises, they were but compilers 
from the foreign writers, enlarging perhaps here and there 
on themes which had been treated too briefly ; and where 
they thought they saw anything which was inconsistent 



* The best edition of the Anglo-Saxon laws yet published is that by 
Schmid, with a German translation, 8vo. Leipzig, 1832 (vol. I. only). A 
more perfect edition was, however, entrusted by the Record Commission to 
the care of Mr. Thorpe, and will shortly be finished. The last edition of 
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is that by Dr. Ingram, with an English transla- 
tion. A few only of the Homilies have yet been published, and a complete 
edition is much to be desired. They have been used to great advantage in 
the invaluable Bampton Lectures by Mr. Soanies, 



STATE OF SCIENCE. 65 

with their own observations, it was with a diffidence^ 
sometimes approaching to fear, that they ventured to make 
the remark. In times nearly approaching to that of the 
Norman conquest, the popular treatises on science Avere 
still nothing more than compilations from Bede, and the 
greatest philosophers of the day seldom presumed to do 
more than write commentaries on his works. One of the 
immediate consequences of this blind submission to autho- 
rity, was the production of many spurious books, some 
of them bearing the names of the great philosophers of 
antiquity, whilst others, not quite so presumptuous, were 
published under such names as Bede and Alcuin. These 
spurious writings naturally tended to add to the confused 
notions of the Anglo-Saxons on matters of science. 

2. In the tenth century the Christians began to seek 
instruction in the schools of the Saracens in Spain, and 
particularly at Toledo ; and the scientific movement which 
had already commenced on the Continent was felt in some 
measure in England, in conjunction chiefly with the mo- 
nastic reforms introduced by Dunstan and Athelwold. 
But the popular feeling was strongly opposed to it, 
and the ill fame attached to science when it was brought 
from the country of the infidels, where it was sup- 
posed to be obtained immediately from the arch-fiend, 
agreed but too closely with the suspicions which attached 
themselves to the ascetic life of the studious monks, 
and to the glimpses of strange operations with which 
from time to time they indulged the world. For several 
centuries, Toledo was celebrated chiefly as the school 
of what were characteristically termed the occult sciences ; 
and to have studied there was synonymous with being a 
profoimd magician. The readers of the old chronicles will 
readily call to mind the fearful story of Pope Gerbert, 
more historically known as Silvester the Second. He was 

* F 



66 POPE GERBERT. 

born in France towards the middle of the tenth century, 
and became a monk either at Fleury or at Rheims at an 
early period of his life. The love of science soon be- 
came his ruling passion, and he repaired to Toledo in 
order to obtain its full gratification. There he learnt 
the use of the astrolabe, and gained a profound know- 
ledge not only of astronomy, but of arithmetic, music, 
geometry, and almost every other branch of science ; 
and he is said to have been the first who brought from 
thence the knowledge of the abacus, that is, he intro- 
duced into France the use of those seemingly arbitrary 
characters which, afterwards modified into our modern 
numerical figures, have exercised so important an influ- 
ence on mathematical knowledge.* Gerbert is also re- 
ported to have learnt there " what the singing and flying 
of birds portended," and to have acquired the power of 
calling up spirits from the other world. At Toledo he 
lived in the house of a famous Saracen philosopher, who 
had a fair daughter, and a most powerful and magical 
book, with which, although it was the object of his j^upiFs 
ardent desires, he could not be prevailed upon to part 
either for money or love. Gerbert, as the story goes, 
finding that it was useless to apply for the book, now 
made love to the lady, and thus discovered that the 
philosopher was in the habit of concealing it under his 
pillow while he slept. In an hour of conviviality he 
made his instructor drunk, and carried off the book in 
triumph. When however the philosopher awoke, he 
discovered, by his knowledge of the stars, which way 

* Abacum certe primus a Saracenis rapiens, regulas dedit quse a sudan- 
tibus abacistis vix intelliguntur. Wm, of Malmsb. from whom the story is 
taken. The characters of the abacus are found in manuscripts of the twelfth 
century, bearing a strong resemblance to the modern numerals as they are 
written in manuscripts of the thirteenth century. The book on the abacus 
is supposed to have been the magical book (grimoire) of the story. 



ATHELWOLD AND DtJNSTAN. 6^ 

his scholar had fled^ and pursued him closely ; but the 
latter baffled his researches by suspending himself under 
the arch of a bridge in such a manner as neither to be on 
the earth nor in the water^ and while the Saracen returned 
home disappointed^ he pursued his way till he came to the 
sea shore. Here he opened his book, and summoned the 
evil one, by whose agency he was conveyed safely over the 
water, but, according to a report which was current among 
his contemporaries, they first made an agreement by which, 
although the philosopher seemed to be a gainer for the 
time, yet in the end the advantage was to remain with the 
tempter. Gerbert afterwards taught publicly in the 
schools in France, and his lectures were so well fre- 
quented, and his fame for learning so great, that he was 
made archbishop first of Rheims and next of Ravenna, and 
finally was elected to the papal chair. His enemies failed 
not to represent this constant run of prosperity as the 
result of his compact with the devil: at Rome, as was 
reported, he occupied his time in seeking, by means of 
the " art magicall," the treasures which had been con- 
cealed by the pagans in ancient times — perhaps he was an 
antiquary, and collected Roman monuments ; and in 
after ages a note appeared in some lists of popes setting 
forth that pope Sylvester died a bad death, though in 
what manner is not quite clear. 

3. Among the many scholars who had profited by Ger- 
berfs teaching, was, as it is said, Athelwold of Winchester, 
the friend of Dunstan, and his supporter in his monastic 
reforms. Dunstan himself fell under the same imputation 
of dealing with unlawful sciences as Gerbert, which perhaps 
arose as much from the jealousy of his enemies, as from 
his extraordinary studies.* Among various other reports, 

* Some of Dunstau's enemies accused him before the king, — dicentes sum 
ex libris salutaribus et jurisperitis non saluti animse profutura, §ed avite 

F 2 



68 DUNSTAN, 

there went abroad a story about an inchanted harp that he 
had made, which performed tunes without tlie agency of 
man, whilst it hung against the wall ; — a thing by no means 
imj)ossible. The prejudices against Dunstan at length 
rose so high, that some of his neighbours, seizing upon 
him one day by surprise^ threw him into a pond ; probably 
for the purpose of trying whether he were a wizard or not, 
according to a receipt in such cases which is hardly yet 
eradicated from the minds of the peasantry. What was in 
part the nature of Dunstan's studies while at Malmsbury 
we may surmise from the story of a learned and ingenious 
monk of the same monastry named Ailmer, who not many 
years afterwards made wings to fly, an extraordinary ad- 
vance in the march of mechanical invention, if we reflect 
that little more than a century before Asser the historian 
thought the invention of lanterns a thing sufficiently 
wonderful to confer an honour upon his patron King- 
Alfred. But Ailmer, in the present instance, allowed his 
zeal to get the better of his judgment. Instead of cauti- 
ously making his first experiment from a low wall, he took 
flight from the top of the church-steeple, and, after flutter- 
ing for a short time helplessly in the air, he fell to the 
ground and broke his legs. Undismayed by this accident, 
the crippled monk found comfort and encouragement in 
the reflection, that his invention would certainly have 
succeeded, had he not forgotten to put a tail behind.f 

gentilitatis vanissima didieisse carmina et histriarum colere iacantationes , 
Vita S. Dunstani, in MS, Cotton, Cleop. B. xiii. fol, 63, v". This is the 
life written by Bridferth of Ramsey, the commentator on Bede, and was 
printed from a MS, in the Monastery of St. Vedasti at Arras, by the Bol- 
landists, in the Act. Sanctor. Maii, iv. 346. 

t Nam pennas manibus et pedibus hand scio qua innexuerat arte, ut 
Dsedali more volaret, fabulam pro vero amplexus ; collectaque e summo 
turris aura spacio stadii et plus volavit, sed venti et turbinis violentia simul, 
et temerarii facti conscientia, tremulus cecidit, perpetuo post hsec debilis, et 
crura effractus. Ipse ferebat causam ruinse, quod caudam in posteriori parte 
oblitus fuerit. W. Malms, (in the Scriptores post Bedam), p. 92, 



NOMENCLATURE OF STUDIES. 69 

4. The course of studies followed in the Anglo-Saxon 
schools was of considerable extent. Bede classes the sciences 
taught by Theodore under the three simple heads of poetry, 
astronomy, and arithmetic* Alcuin informs us that Albert, 
who succeeded Egbert in the archbishopric of York, 
taught in the school there, first, grammar, rhetoric, juris- 
prudence, and poetry, and in addition to these all the 
higher branches of learning, — 

Ast alios fecit prsefatus nosse magister 
Harmoniam coeli, solis lunseque labores, 
Quinque poli zonas, errantia sidera septem, 
Astrorutn leges, ortus, simul atque recessus, 
Aerios motus pelagi, terrseque tremorem, 
Naturas hominum, peciidum, volucrumque, ferarum, 
Diversas numeri species, vaiiasque figuras ; 
.Paschalique dedit solemnia certa recursu, 
Maxima scnpturse pandens mysteria sacrffi. 

{Be Pontif. Eborac.ii. 728.) 

Aldhelm at the latter end of his prose treatise de Laucle 
Virginitatis enumerates what he calls " the disciplines of 
the philosophers," under six general heads, namely, arith- 
metic, geometry, music, astronomy, astrology, and mecha- 
nicsf, of all which he elsewhere declares that he found 
arithmetic to be the most difficult and complicated. In 
another place he speaks of the studies of the gram- 
marians, and the disciphnes of the philosophers, as being 
divided into seven, alluding evidently to the arrangement 
which was so universal during the middle ages, in which 
they stood in this order, g]?ammar, logic, rhetoric, music, 
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy,^ But it is very singular 
that in this instance no two manuscripts of Aldhelm agree. 

* Bede, Hist. Eccl. iv. 2. 

t Omnes propemodum plnlosophorum disciplinas, hoc est, arithmeticam, 
geometricam , musicam, astronomiam, astrologiam, et mechanicam. 

X These seven arts, known at a later period as the iriviimi and quadrivium 
of the schools, are enumerated in the following well-known lines : — 
Gram, loquitur, Dia. vera docet, Rhet. verba colorat, 
Mus. canit, Ar. numerat, Geo. pouderat, As. colit astrai 



yO NOMENCLATURE OF STUDIES. 

The printed textj evidently formed from the nomen- 
clature above mentioned^ which is found at the end of the 
book^ arranges the seven sciences thus^ — arithmetic, geome- 
try, music, astronomy, astrology, mechanics, medicine.* 
Of five manuscripts in the old Royal Library in the 
British Museum, one only, apparently of the eighth 
century, t agrees with this printed text. In all the 
others the list begins with the grammatical studies, 
and two of them, one of the eighth century,^ the other 
of the ninth,§ give the list mentioned above, namely, 
grammar, rhetoric, dialectics (or logic), arithmetic, music, 
geometry, astronomy. Of the remaining two manuscripts, 
one, written in the ninth century, || combines the two lists 
together, and the other, probably of the end of this same 
century,^ adds medicine to them all, and makes ten 
sciences instead of seven. A similar list, entered sepa- 
rately in a manuscript of the ninth century, agrees with 
Aldhelm's printed text.-** From these variations we are led 
to conclude, in the first place, that the division into seven 
branches was not very popular among the Anglo-Saxons, ft 

* Igitur consummatis grammaticorum studiis et philosophorum disciplinis, 
quae septem speciebus dirimuiitur, id est, Arithmetica, Geometrica, Musica, 
Astronomia, Astrologia, Mechanica, Medicina. Aldhelm. de L. V. ed. Delrio, 
p. 41. 

t MS. Reg, 5 F. III., fol. 24 v", 

t MS. Reg. 7 D. XXIV, fol. 126 v°. 

§ MS. Reg. 5 E. XI. fol. 69 v°. 

II MS. Reg. 6 A. VI. fol. 64 v°. 

1[ MS. Reg. 6 B. VIII. fol. 30 v". Grammatica, rhetorica, dialectica, 
arithmetica, musica, geometrica, astronomia, astrologia, mechanica, medicina. 

** MS. Cotton. Domitian, A. i. fol. 1 rO. To this list is added the term 
mathematici, steor-wiffleras, 

■f-f It is easy to see that the fomidation of all these variations lies in the ambi- 
guity of the sentence, " consummatis grammaticorum studiis et phUosophorum 
disciplinis, quae septem speciebus dirimuntur," where qticB and septem might 
be construed as referring to the whole, or only to the pMl. disciplinis, but the 
persons with whom the numerous variations originated can have had no know- 
ledge of the septenary division, or they would never have had any doubt on the 
subject. 



ANGLO-SAXON SCHOOLS. 7l 

andj secondly, that the study of medicine was considered 
a very important part of a scientific education, in fact, 
that the clergy were the chief medical practitioners. 

5. With the single exception of medicine (leece-dom), 
we find no term in the Anglo-Saxon language for any of 
these branches of learning; but in the glosses, which 
most of these manuscripts contain, the original word is 
simply translated according to its component parts. We 
are inclined to look upon this as an additional proof that 
there were no scientific works written in the vernacular 
tongue until a late period. Thus rhetoric is translated by 
Jiel-crceft, and dialectics or logic by flit-crseft,* the latter 
of which will be best understood by the readers of old 
Scottish poetry, if we explain it as the art of Jiyting. 
Grammar is not translated in these glosses, but the Anglo- 
Saxon term generally used was stgef-craft, or the art of 
letters. Arithmetic is rim-crseft, or the art of numbers ; 
geometry is translated by eorj^-gemet, or earth-measure- 
ment ; music by son-crasft, or the art of sound ; astro- 
nomy by tungel-se', or the law of the constellations ; astro- 
logy by tungel-gescead, or the reason of the constellations ; 
and mechanics by orj^anc-scipe, or ingenuity. 

6. The schools of the Anglo-Saxons appear in system 
and form of teaching to have been the prototypes of our 
old grammar-schools. Before the time of Alfred, English 
was not taught in them. The elementary treatises on 
Grammar, the first subject in their course of studies, 
were written in Latin, and it is probable that the teacher, 
or 7nagister, in the first instance, explained and translated 
them orally, whilst the chief task of his scholars was to 
commit them to memory, and to repeat the teachers 
comments. At the same time they were continually exer- 

* These two glosses are found only in MS* Reg. 6 B. YIL 



72 POPULAR EDUCATION. 

cised in reading and chanting in Latin. As the boys made 
themselves masters of the first elements of grammar, or 
the accidence, they were taught Latin dialogues, to make 
them acquainted with the colloquial forms of the language 
in which, as scholars, they were expected to converse. In 
the same manner, up to a very late period, the colloquies 
of Corderius and the Janua Linguarum of Comenius 
were the first reading books in our modern schools. The 
scholars were long practised in these elements of learning, 
before they Avere introduced to the higher branches. 
Grammar, in its more extended sense, included generally 
the study of the ancient authors ; and since, as was before 
observed, it was in the study of those authors, that 
our forefathers in this remote age learnt science, the name 
of grammar was often popularly applied to the whole 
course of study, so much so that, in comparatively recent 
times, even the supposed power of the magician and 
conjurer was frequently designated by the same appella- 
tion of "grammarye.^'* 

7. It is singular enough, that most of the ways of giving 
a popular form to elementary instruction, which have been 
put in practice in our own days, had been already tried in 
the latter times of the Anglo-Saxons. We thus find the 
origin of our modern catechisms amongst the forms of 
education then in use. Not only were many of the ele- 
mentary treatises on grammar written in the shape of ques- 
tion and ansv/er, with the object of making them easier to 

* In the old legend of Charlemagne we are told, premierement fist Karle- 
mame paindre dans son palais gramaire, qui mfere est de tons les arz. Jubinal, 
Rutebeiif, vol. ii. p. 417. In the metrical Image du Monde, a work of the 
thirteenth century, we find one of those mystical reasons, then so common, 
why grammar held this high rank — it is the science of words, and by the word 
God created the world ! 

Par parole fist Dex le monde, 
Et tous les biens qui ens habunde. 



ELEMENTARY BOOKS. 7^ 

learn and to understand, as well as of encouraging the prac- 
tice of Latin conversation, but also the first books in the 
other sciences. We find this to be the case in many of the 
tracts written by Bede and Alcuin, as well as in those which 
were fabricated in their names. Afterwards, when in 
England the Latin tongue seems to have ceased to be to 
the same extent as before a conventional language among 
the learned, various attempts were made to simplify the 
steps by which it was taught. First, the elementary 
grammars were accompanied with an Anglo-Saxon gloss, 
in which, separately from the text, each word of the ori- 
ginal was repeated with its meaning in the vernacular 
tongue ;* and then, as a still further advance in rendering 
it popular, the Latin grammar itself was published only 
in an Anglo-Saxon translation. We have seen the old 
Latin school-grammar pass through similar gradations in 
our own time. We owe to Alfric the Anglo-Saxon transla- 
tion of the Latin Grammar, which, from its frequent recur- 
rence in the manuscripts, seems to have been the standard 
elementary book of the day ; and in the preface to that 
work he repeats the complaint, which had been made more 
than once since the days of Alfred, of the low state of Latin 
literature in England.f Much about the same period 
came into use introductory reading books, with interhnear 
versions, which differed not in the slightest degree from 
those of the Hamiltonian system of the present day. A 
singularly interesting specimen of such books, composed 
also by Alfric, has been preserved in two manuscripts, and is 
printed in Thorpe's Analecta Anglo-Saxonica ; the text, 
which is a dialogue between persons of different professions, 

* A metrical Latiii grammar, with a glossarial adjmict of tliis kind, is i^-e- 
served iii the Harleian MS. No. 3271, wiitten in the tenth centmy. 

t The only prmted edition of Alfric's Grammar, is that published at the end 
of Somner's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 



74 ARITHMETICAL PROBLEMS. 

is SO arranged as to give within the smallest possible 
space the greatest variety of Latin words, and so to con- 
vey the largest quantity of instruction. This curious 
tract is valuable to the historian for the light which 
it throws upon the domestic manners of the age in which 
it was written. Among many other things, we learn 
that even the school-boys in the monasteries were sub- 
jected to a severe course of religious service; and that 
the rod was used very liberally in the Anglo-Saxon 
schools. 

8. Amongst other Anglo-Saxon forms of instruction 
which have retained their popularity down to modern times, 
we must not overlook the collections of Arithmetical 
problems which are given in all our old elementary treatises, 
and are still to be found in such books as Bonnycastle's 
Arithmetic. The Anglo-Saxons had a regular series of 
such questions, many of which are identically the same as 
those found in modern publications. This ancient collection 
is printed in the works of Bede, and again in those of 
Alcuin, but it is probably not the work of either of those 
writers. It is given anonymously in a manuscript in the 
British Museum, which is certainly not of a later date than 
the tenth or eleventh century.* The first problem in the list 
is this : — " The swallow once invited the snail to dinner : 
he lived just one league from the spot, and the snail 
travelled at the rate of only one inch a day : how long 
would it be before he dined ?" The following question, in 
various shapes, was very popular in our old school-books 
— if Three men and their three wives came together to the 
side of a river, where they found but one boat, which was 
capable of carrying over only two persons at once : all the 

* MS. Bumey, No. 59. See Bede's Works, torn. i. col. 103, and Alcuin's 
Works, torn. ii. , wliei-e this collection is printed. In a MS. of the lOth cent, at 
Vienna, it is attributed to Alcuin. 



SATURN AND SOLOMON. 75 

men were jealous of eacli other : how must they contrive 
so that no one of them should be left alone in company 
with his companion's wife ?" Again, "An old man met a 
child, ^ Good day, my son P says he, * may you live as long- 
as you have lived, and as much more, and thrice as much 
as all this, and if God give you one year in addition to the 
others, you will be just a century old :' — what was the lad's 
age ?" It may be observed that none of the problems in 
this collection are very complicated. The title, in some 
copies, tells us that they were made ad acuendosjuvenes. 

9. The other sciences, as well as Arithmetic, were often 
the subject of questions intended at the same time to try 
the knowledge, and to exercise the ingenuity of the 
person questioned. Among the most curious tracts of this 
kind are the dialogues which go under the name of 
Saturn and Solomon, or, in one case, of Adrian and Rithceus.* 
The subjects of these dialogues are sometimes scriptural 
notions, and at others fragments of popular science, but 
in most cases they are of a legendary character. Thus, 
to the question, " Where does the sun shine at night ?" 
the answer is that it shines in three places, first in 
the belly of the whale called Leviathan, next it shines 
in hell, and afterwards it shines on the island which 
is called Glith, where the souls of holy men rest till 
doomsday. Again, to the question, "Where is a man's 
mind ?" the answer is, " In his head, and it comes 
out at his mouth." " Tell me where resteth the soul of 
man, when his body sleepeth ?" is another question : — "I 
tell thee it is in three places, in the brain, or in the 
heart, or in the blood." Among other things we are in- 

* The dialogue between Saturn and Solomon is limited in Thorpe's Ana- 
lecta, p. 95, and that between Adiiau and Rithseus in the Altdeutsche Blittter, 
vol. ii. p. 189. (Leipzig, 1838.) 



76 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

formed that there are in the world fifty-two species of 
birds, thirty-four kinds of snakes, and thirty-six kinds 
of fishes, which shows the very hmited knowledge of 
our forefathers in natural history. At Cambridge there 
are also preserved some fragments of a metrical Anglo- 
Saxon dialogue between Solomon and Saturn, in which 
the questions discussed are much more mystical than 
those which we find in the prose. There is also printed 
among the works of Alcuin, a Latin tract entitled Dispu- 
tatio inter Pip2nnumetAlcuinum/^ which bears in some parts 
a great resemblance to these dialogues. Among a multi- 
tude of other questions, we find some in this tract that 
are of a most fantastic character, such for example as, — 
" How is man placed ? like a candle in the wind. — What is 
the forehead ? the image of the mind. — What is the sky ? a 
rolling sphere. — What is man? a painter of the earth. — 
What is grass ? the garment of the earth. — What are herbs? 
the friends of the physicians, and the praise of cooks .'^ 
The following definitions of a ship remind us of the 
metaphorical language of Anglo-Saxon poetry — " a ship is 
a wandering house, a hostle wherever you will, a traveller 
that leaves no footsteps, a neighbour of the sand.^' After 
going through a variety of other questions, more or less 
singular, the dialogue at last becomes a mere collection of 
enigmas, such as, " What is that, from which if you take 
the head, it becomes higher ?" Ansiver : — '^ Go to your 
bed, and there you will find it." The joke seems to lie in 
the ambiguity of the expression : as it is not the bed, but 
the head, which is raised higher, when removed from the 
bed. 

10. No class of popular literature was so general a 
favourite among the Anglo-Saxons as enigmas and rid- 

* Alcuini Opera, torn. ii. p. 353. 



ENIGMAS AND RIDDLES. 77 

dies, and tliey form an imiDortant part of the literary 
remains of our forefathers. Collections of Anglo-Latin 
-^nigmata, such as those of Aldhelm, were composed at 
a very early period. They were imitations of a still older 
Latin tract of this description, which was also popular 
among the Anglo-Saxons, under the title of Symposii 
JEnigmata, and which has been frequently printed ; but 
whether this title implies that it was written by a person 
named Symposius, or whether it only means that they are 
symposiaca miigmata, or, as we might say, ' nuts to crack 
over our wine,' is a question among the learned* ; though 
the introductory lines would lead us to conclude that they 
were written with a view to this latter object. They have 
sometimes been attributed, but apparently without any 
good reason, to Lactantius. The riddles in this collection 
are expressed in triplets ; they are often so contrived 
as to convey information imder the cloak of amusement, 
and they sometimes present us with an elegant senti- 
ment or a pretty idea. The subject of the following is a 
ship : — 

Longa feror velox formosEe filia silvse, 
Innumera pariter comitum stipante caterva ; 
Curro vias multas vestigia nulla relinquens. 



Est nova nostrarum cunctis captura ferarum, 

Ut siquid capias et tu tibi ferre recuses, 

Et quod non capias tecum tamen ipse reportas. 

The subject of the next is a violet, Li the second line 

* The MS. Reg. 12 C. XXIII. contains early copies of the ^nigmata 
of Aldhelm, Symposius, and Tahtwin, and another collection under the name 
of Eusebius. Two early but imperfect copies of the MvAgm&ta. Symposii are 
also presented in MS. Reg. 15 B. XIX., and another more modern in MS. 
Cotton. Vespas. B. xxiii. 



78 aldkelm's ^nigmata. 

there seems to be a pun in the word spiritus which has not 
the odour of great antiquity about it. 

Magna quidem non sum, sed inest mihi maxima virtus ; 
Spiiitus est magnus, quamvis sim corpore pai-vo ; 
Nee mihi germen habet noxam, nee culpa ruborem. 

Some of these enigmas are curious as illustrating inci- 
dents of private life. The subject of the following, which 
bears a different title in different manuscripts, is certainly- 
some kind of liquor composed of three principal ingre- 
dients : according to the gloss in the margin of the oldest 
manuscript, these were honey, wine, and pepper. 

Tres olim fuimus qui nomine junglmur uno, 
Ex tribus est unus, tres et miscentur in uno ; 
duisque bonus per se, melior qui continet omnes. 

11. Aldhelra confesses that he was but an imitator of 
Symposius ; but his eenigmata are deficient in that sim- 
plicity of sentiment and expression, which he found in his 
models. There needs no greater proof, how complicated 
and far-fetched they are, than the immense number of 
glossarial explanations with which they are accompanied 
in the MS. preserved in the British Museum. The follow- 
ing, perhaps, possesses as much simplicity as any we could 
select, but the last line is a remarkable specimen of that 
sinking in poetry of which its writer has often cause to 
plead guilty. Its subject is the Wind. 

Cernere me nulli possunt nee prendere palmis, 
Argutum vocis crepitum cito pando per orbem, 
Viiibus liorrisonis valeo confringere quercus, 
Nam superos ego pulso polos, et rm-a peragro. 

The next is so peculiarly literary, that, although it needs 
some explanation, we can hardly pass it over. Its subject 
is the alphabet : it will perhaps be enough to say that in 
the third line ferro is explained in the gloss by stilo 
graplnco, that the terni fratres are the three fingers which 



ANGLO-SAXON RIDDLES. 79 

hold the pen, and the incerta mater the pen itself, " it 
being uncertain whether this were a crow or goose quill, or 
a reed."* 

Nos denae et septem genitse sine voce sorores, 
Sex alias nothas non dicimus adnumerandas, 
Nascimm- ex ferro rursus ferro moribundse, 
Necnon et volucris penna volitantis ad sethram ; 
Terni nos fratres incerta matre crearunt ; 
Qui cupit instanter sitiens audire, docemus, 
Turn cito prompta damns rogitanti verba silenter. 

12. But by far the most curious and interesting collec- 
tion of early enigmas that exists, is the large one in 
Anglo-Saxon verse, which occupies a considerable portion 
of the Exeter manuscript. From their intentional obscu- 
rity, and from the uncommon words with which they 
abound, many of these riddles are at present altogether 
unintelligible j but where they can be translated with any 
certainty, they are by no means devoid either of beauty 
or interest. The following, for example, seems to give us 
the first traces of that doughty hero, John Barleycorn, 
so famous in the days of ballad-singing.f 

Bit> foldan dsel A part of the earth is 

fsegre ge-giei-wed, prepared beautifally, 

mid hy heardestan, with the hardest, 

and mid }?y scearpestan, and with the sharpest, 

and mid >y grymmestan and with the grunmest 

gumena gestreona, of the productions of men, 

corf en sworfen, cut and , 

cyrred J>yi-red, turned and dried, 

bimden wimden, bomid and twisted, 

* i. ignoramus utrum cum penna corvina, vel anserina, sive calamo, per- 
scriptfe simus. Glossa, in MS. Reg. 12, C. xxiii. 

f This riddle affords us an example how certain ideas run through the 
popular literature of different nations at all periods. M. Jubinal, in his 
Nouveau Recueil de Contes, Dits, Fabliaux, etc. (vol. i. 8vo. Paris, 1839), 
p. 251, has printed an early French fabliau, " LeMartyrede Saint Baccus," 
where the god of the vine takes the jilace of Sir John Barleycorn, just as 
the juice of the grape in the country where it was composed occupies the 
place of the liquor of which the English hero was a personification. 



80 ANGLO-SAXON RIDDLES. 

blaeced wseced, bleached and awakened, 

frsetwed geatwed, ornamented and poured out, 

feorran Iseded carried afar 

to durum dryhta, to the doors of people, 

dream biS in innan it is joy in the inside 

cwicra wihta, of living creatures, 

clenge'S lenge'S, it knocks and slights 

J^ara J?e ser lifgende those, of whom before while alive 

longe hwile . a long while 

wilna bruce'S, it obeys the will, 

and no wi'S-spi'ice'S, and expostulateth not, 

and Jjonne sefter deal^e and then after death 

deman on-ginned, it takes upon it to judge, 

meldan mislice. to talk vai'iously. 

Micel is to hycganne It is greatly to seek 

wis-fsestum menn by the wisest man, 

hwset seo wiht ys. what this creature is. 
(Exet. MS.fol. 107, y°.)* 

The subject of another seems to be the Aurelia of the 
butterfly, and its transformations ; by which it would 
appear that our forefathers were at times dihgent observers 
of nature — 

Ic seah turf tredan, I saw tread over the turf 

X. WEeron ealra, ten in all, 

* This riddle is curious as exhibiting a repetition of rhiming words, like 
those which have been attempted by some of the lighter poets of the pre- 
sent day. Single lines of this kind are not uncommon scattered over the 
Anglo-Saxon poetry of the best age, as "wide and side," {wide and broad) 
in Beowulf and Csedmon ; "blowan and growan," (to blossom and to grow) 
in the Ex. MS. fol. 109, r°; &c. We find sometimes three such rhyming 
words, as "flod bl6d ge-w6d" (blood pervaded the flood), Cadm. jd. 207. 
In the Exeter MS. there is one whole poem (which was published by 
Conybeare), written entirely in rhymes of the most fantastic description, 
as, for instance, 

flah-mah flite«, 

flan-mon hwite'5, 

burg-sorg bite'S, 

bald-aid ^witeti, 

wrsec-faec wrij^e'S, 

wri>-a'S smite'S, &c. 
The whole of these verses are extremely obscure and difficult to understand, 
a proof that rhime was a great trial of the ingenuity of the writer, and by 
no means congenial to the language. 



ANGLO-SAXON RIDDLES. 



81- 



vL ge-bro>or, 
and hera sweoster mid, 
hsefdon feorg cwico ; 
fell hongedon 
sweotol and ge-syne 
on seles wsege, 
anra gehwylces 
ne wses hyra sengum ]>y wyrs, 
ne side \>j sarra, 
Jjeah hy swa sceoldon, 
reafe bi-rofene, 
rodra weardes 
meahtum a-weahte, 
mul^um slitan 
blede ; 

bi^ ge-niwad, 
ima >e ser for'S-cymene 
fraetwe leton 
licgan on laste 
ge-witan lend tredan. 
(Ex. MS.fol 104, r".; 



six brothers, 

and their sisters with them, 

they had a living soul ; 

they hanged their skins, 

openly and manifestly 

on the wall of the hall, 

to any one of them all 

it was none the worse, 

nor his side the sorer, 

although they should thus, 

bereaved of covering, 

[and] awakened by the might 

of the guardian of the skies, 

bite with their mouths 

the rough leaves ; 

clothuig is renewed 

to those who before coming forth 

let their ornaments 

lie in their track, 

to depart over the earth. 



The Anglo-Saxons were especially partial to riddles 
founded on Scripture, thinking, perhaps, that they exhi- 
bited in solving them their acquaintance with the sacred 
volume. The subject of the following must be the patri- 
arch Lot and his two daughters and their two sons. — 



Wser sset set wine, 
mid his wifum twam, 
and his twegen suno, 
and his twa dohtor, 
swase ge-sweostor 
and hyre suno twegen, 
freolico frum-bearn ; 
fseder wses Jpser-inne 
})ara sejielinga 
seghwse'Sres, 
mid earn and nefa : 
ealra wseron fife 
eorla and idesa 
in-sittendra. 

(Ex. MS.fol. 112, V.J 



There sat a man at his wine, 

with his two wives, 

and his two sons, 

and his two daughters, 

own sisters, 

and their two sons, 

comely first-bom children ; 

the father was there 

of each one 

of the noble ones, 

with the uncle and the nephe'fi 

there were five in all 

men and women 

sitting there. 



82 ANGLO-SAXON SCIENCE. 

Of the next, it is not so easy to give a probable solu- 
tion — 

Ic eom wunder-licu wiht, I am a wonderful creature, 

ne mseg word spi'ecan, I may not speak a word, 

mseldan for monnum, nor converse before men, 

>eah ic muj? hsebbe, though I have a mouth, 

wide wombe : with a spacious belly : 

ic waes on ceole, I was in a ship, 

and mines cnosles ma. with more of my race. 
(Ex. MS.fol. 10.5, v".) 

§ VI. The Highe7^ Branches of Science. 
1. It has been already observed that science, as cultivated 
by the Anglo-Saxons, was almost entirely founded upon 
older foreign authorities. One of the most popular of these 
authorities was Isidore, a Spanish Christian, who lived at 
the beginning of the seventh century, and who published a 
manual of science under the title of De Naturis Rerum, as 
well as a larger work entitled Etymologies., or Oi'igines, which 
is a kind of nomenclature, accompanied with definitions, of 
nearly every thing that existed, from the highest attributes 
of the Deity, through all the diiferent regions of science and 
art, down to the most insignificant of children's games. In 
the higher branches of science, the Saxons followed princi- 
pally those writers of the time of the Roman Empire, who 
were then peculiarly styled " the Philosophers ]' such, for 
example, as Macrobius and Apuleius. Bede, and the Anglo- 
Saxon scholars of that and the following age, quote frequently 
such writers as Dionysius Exiguus, and Victor Aquitanus. 
The popularity of certain treatises appears, in some cases, 
to have arisen from their accidental introduction into 
England at an early period. This, perhaps, was the case 
with Cicero^s translation of Aratus, and the prose Astro- 
nomica of Hyginus which accompanies it ; in the Harleian 
library,* are preserved a few leaves of what may have 

* MS. Harl. No. 647. An account of this MS. was contributed to the 



MATHEMATICS. 83 

been the very copy of this work that was first brought 
into our island ; for it seems to have been written in the 
seventh, or early in the eighth century; the pictures bear 
every mark of having been painted by a foreign artist, 
and there can be little doubt that it was the prototype of 
the other manuscripts of the same book which were written 
in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, although 
neither in the text nor drawings are they absolutely literal 
copies.* Aratus, in Cicero's Latin version, and Hyginus, 
were the chief authorities of the Anglo-Saxons, not only 
for the forms and positions of the Constellations, but also 
for the details of Grecian and Roman mythology, with 
which their names were so closely connected. The scientific 
writings of Boethius do not appear to have been much 
read till the latter end of the Anglo-Saxon period. 

2. Geometry is found in the Anglo-Saxon lists of 
sciences ; but to what extent, or in what form it was 
studied, we have no very certain indications. Tradition, 
in after-times, gave to the reign of King Athelstan the 
honour of the first introduction of Euclid's Elements,t 
although we are not acquainted mth any English manu- 
script of that work Mhich belongs to an earlier date than 
the twelfth century, when it was translated into Latin 
by Athelard of Bath. It seems probable, indeed, that 
the Anglo-Saxons, when they spoke of geometry, under- 
stood nothing more than simple mensuration ; and we have 
no reason for believing that they had any acquaintance 
with mathematics as a pure and abstract science. The 

24th vol. of the Archseologia by Mr. Ottley, who, by a series of inconclusive 
arguments, endeavoured to show that it is of the second or third centui-y. 

* MS. Harl. No. 2506, probably of the beginning of the ninth century, 
and MS. Cotton. Tiber. B. v. of the tenth century. The latter is one of the 
most interesting volumes for the illustration of the history of Anglo-Saxon 
science, that exists. 

f See Rara Mathematica (edited by Mr. Halliwell), p. 56. 

G 2 



84 ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 

great dissensions about the true time of celebrating 
Easter, which had been felt so severely by the Anglo- 
Saxon church, had given a peculiar turn to numerical 
calculations. The object which many of the early 
Anglo-Saxon scholars had chiefly in view in their visits 
to Rome, was not more to obtain a knowledge of the 
arguments by which the Romish church there defended 
its doctrine on this subject, than to learn the calcu- 
lations on which its variations depended; and on their 
return, they made a powerful use of both in their con- 
troversies with the partizans of the contrary system. 
These calculations were long afterwards the business of 
the arithmeticians (rym-craeftige),* and those who were 
skilful in "circle-craft" (on circule-crsefte) ;t and the 
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of all periods are filled with tracts 
and tables connected with this all-engrossing subject, under 
the title of De Computo, or De Computo Ecclesiastico. 

3. The Anglo-Saxons rather took notice of, than ob- 
served, the various phenomena of the heavens. They 
were interested in them simply so far as they were sup- 
posed to influence the seasons which were favourable or 
otherwise to the husbandman or the sailor ; or with an 
eye to their more mystical connexion with the destinies of 
individuals or of kingdoms. Anglo-Saxon manuscripts 
abound in tables of prognostications of the weather, and 
of the good or bad influence of the lunar and solar 
changes. Although sea-faring men were the chief ob- 
serverSyX yet even they confided so little in the certainty 
of such prognostications, that, rather than trust to them, 

* Metrical Menology, v. 89, ed. Fox. f lb. v. 132. 

X The metrical translator of Boethius quotes the authority of sailors even 
for the names of the planets : — 

Jjone Saturnus Which Saturn 

sund-buenda the sea-farers 

hata^. call. 



ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 85 

they preferred choosing the two calmest months of the 
year, June and July, called, on that account, the earlier 
and later sailing-months (li^e-mona^), for their longer 
voyages. Some of the best scholars not only suspected 
that there were errors in the authorised astronomical 
calculations, but were extremely puzzled by accidental 
observations, which disagreed with the statements of the 
books they followed. In the year 798, considerable sensa- 
tion was caused upon the continent by the planet Mars, 
which, under certain circumstances, had been found to 
remain beneath the horizon much longer than it should 
have done, according to " the books of the philosophers." 
In answer to a letter from Charlemagne, Alcuin, after 
entering at some length into the subject, goes on to 
observe : — " However, what has now happened to the 
planet Mars alone, the same thing is frequently observed 
in these parts with respect to all the five planets, namely, 
that they remain longer under the horizon than is stated in 
the books of the ancients which are our guides. And per- 
haps the rising and setting of the stars, as observed by 
us who dwell in these northern parts, vary from the ob- 
servations of those who live in the eastern and southern 
parts of the world, where chiefly flourished the ' Masters ' 
who set forth for us the laws and courses of the heaven 
and of the planets. For many things are changed, as your 
own wisdom knows perfectly well, by diversity of place."''^ 
Alcuin's modern editor conjectures, from this passage, that 

* Quod vero de sola Martis stella mode evenit, hoc et de omnibus quinque 
stellis errantibus in his partibus ssepius solet evenire, ut diutius abscondantur 
quam regularis pagina veterum decantat. Et forte non sequaliter, nobis in 
his partibus Borealibus conversantibus, ortus et occasus siderum evenit, sicut 
illis, qui in Orientalibus vel Meridianis partibus mundi morantur, ubi maxime 
fuere Magistri qui nobis rationes et cursus coeli et stellarum ediderunt. Nam 
multa ex locorum diversitate, sicut vestra optime novit sapientia, immutantur. 
Alcuin. Epist. ad domnum regem, p. 58. Operum torn. I. 



86 POPULAR ASTRONOMY. 

the Anglo-Saxon scholar had made such great advances 
in the study of science as already to suspect the true form 
of the earth. It is certain that observations made syste- 
matically with moderately good instruments, in pursuance 
of the train of reasoning which Alcuin here states, would 
have led to its discovery. The passage shows, at all 
events, that the wisest of the Anglo-Saxons were conscious 
of the imperfections of the system they were pursuing. 

4. To some scholar of the tenth century, we owe a 
comprehensive treatise in the Anglo-Saxon language on 
the principal astronomical phenomena, designedly ex- 
plained in a simple manner, and calculated for the level of 
ordinary capacities. From the numerous copies which 
still remain of this work, we may conclude that it was 
extremely popular in its day.* Yet it has hitherto been 
scarcely noticed by modern scholars, and indeed it is not 
unfrequently found buried among collections on the com- 
putus, so as very easily to escape attention. This tract 
■gives us a very fair, and on the whole a very favour- 
able, view of the popular science of the period when, 
among the Anglo-Saxons, knowledge was in such treatises 
diffused among the many, instead of being restricted in a 
learned language to the few. The writer of this book 
begins by stating that night is the eifect of the earth's 
shadow, when the earth itself is betjveen us and the sun.f 

* Our extracts are taken from a copy in MS. Cotton. Titus D. xxvii. 
which seems to have been written for the use of nuns. There are three or four 
other copies in the British Museum (one in Tiber. B. v, quoted above), besides 
what are to be found at Oxford and Cambridge. We believe this tract will 
be printed, a thing certamly much to be desired, in an appendix to a History 
of the Mathematics in England during the middle ages, by J. O. Haliiwell, Esq. 

t Ure eor^lice niht so'Slice cym'S J^urh Jjsere eor'San sceade, ]:>onne seo 
sunne gse'S on Ee'fnunge under Kssere eor^an ; )3onne bit" t-Bere eortan bradnys 
betwux us and bsera sunnan, Jjset we hyre leoman lihtinge nabba'S ot'Sset heo 
eft on o'Serne ende up-astihS. MS. Cott. Titus, D. xxvii. fol. 30, v". Our 
earthly night truly comes by the earth's shadow when the sun goes in the 



POPULAR ASTRONOMY. 87 

After explaining the moon's changes, as a matter arising 
naturally ont of the former subject, he goes on to tell us 
how, from sunset to sunrise, the night is divided into 
seven parts, namely — 1, twilight, or ^^ evening's gloam- 
ing ;" 2, evening ; 3, the hour of silence, when every- 
thing goes to rest (conticinium) ; 4, midnight ; 5, cock 
crowing ; 6, dawn ; 7, daybreak, or the period which inter- 
venes between dawn and sunrise.* The account of the 
year, and its seasons, divisions, and duration, leads to 
the definition of the lunar, as contradistinguished from the 
solar year, and this affords us a remarkable specimen of 
the popular mode of explaining science which was used by 
our forefathers : " Now," says the writer, " you may under- 
stand that the man who goes round one house makes 
a lesser course than he who goes round the whole town ; 
and so the moon has his course to run sooner on the lesser 
circuit than the sun has on the greater ; this is the moon's 
year.'^t 

evening under this earth; then is the earth's broadness between us and the 
sun, so that ice have not the illumination of her shine until she arjain rises 
up at the other end. As in the other Germanic tongues, the sun is femi- 
nine, and the moon masculine, in Anglo-Saxon and early English. 

* Seo niht hsef 5 seofon dselas, fi-am t>8ere sunnan setlunge ot) hyre upgang : 
an Jjsera dsela is crepusculum, Jjaet is 0efen-gl6ma ; o'Ser is vesperum, ]?8et is 
sefen, ]?onne se sefen-steorra betwux repsunge set-eowa^ ; }>ridde is conti- 
cinium, J^onne ealle Mng suwia'S on heora reste ; feor'Sa is intempestum, \>ddt 
is mid-niht ; Mta. is ffallicinium, l>set is han-crei; syxta is matutinum, o'S^e 
aurora, \>?et is dseg-red ; seofo'Sa is diluculum, t>8et is eerne merien, betwux 
J?am dseg-rede and sunnan up-gange. lb. fol. 32, v". The night has seven 
parts, from the sun's setting to her upgoing : one of these parts is crepus- 
culum, tfiat is even' s gloaming ; the second w vesperum, that is even, when 
the even star shows itself in the interval between light and dark ; the third 
is conticinium, ivhen all things are silent in their rest ; the fourth is intem- 
pestum, that is midnight ; the fifth is gallicinium, that is cock-crowing ; the 
sixth is matutinum, or aurora, that is dawn; the seventh is diluculnm, that 
is early morning, between dawn and the sun's upgoing. 

t Nu miht W understandan, l>8et Isessan ymbe-gang hsef S se mann be geeS 
onbuton an hus, Jjoune se '5e ealle l^a burh be-gseS ; swa eac se mona hsef 8 



88 OOSMOGRAPHICAL NOTIONS. 

5. The worldj in the larger sense of the word {mundus, 
Koafios), was designated among the Anglo-Saxons by a 
name borrowed from their old mythological ideas, middan- 
geard, or the middle yard or region, which was afterwards 
gradually corrupted into the old English word "middle- 
earth." "All that is within the firmament/' says the 
tract just mentioned, " is called middan-geard, or the 
world. The firmament is the ethereal heaven, adorned 
with many stars; the heaven, and sea, and earth, are 
called the world. The firmament is perpetually turning 
round about us, under this earth and above, and there is 
an incalculable space between it and the earth. Four-and- 
twenty hours have passed, that is one day and one night, 
before it is once turned round, and all the stars which are 
fixed in it turn round with it. The earth stands in the 
centre, by God^s power so fixed, that it never swerves 
either higher or lower than the Almighty Creator, who 
holds all things without labour, established it. Every 
sea, although it be deep, has its bottom on the earth, and 
the earth supports all seas, and the ocean, and all fountains 
and rivers run through it ; as the veins lie in a man^s 
body, so lie the veins of water throughout the earth."* 

his ryne hra'Sor aurnen on J^am Isessan ymb-hwyrfte, f>onne seo sunne hsebbe 
on i^am miiran ; >is is >Ees m6nan geilr. li fol. 35, r". 

* Ih. fol. 37, v". Z)e mundo. Middan-geard is ge-haten call J'set binnan 
Y^ra firmamentum is. Firmamentitm is J^eos roderlice heofen, midmanegum 
steorrum am^t ; seo heofen, and sse', and eor'Se, synd ge-hatene middan- 
geard. Seo firmamentum tym'c5 symle on-butan us under t>issere eor'San 
and bufon, ac J'ser is un-ge-rira fsec betwux hire and Jjsere eor'San ; feower 
and twentig tida beo'5 agiine, hset is iin dseg and ^n niht, Eer J^am J^e heo beo 
sene ymb-tyrnd, and ealle {'a steorran J^e hyre on fseste synd, turnia^ on- 
butan mid hyre. Seo o'Ser stent on sele-middan, J>urh Godes mihte swa ge- 
fsestnod, J'set heo nasfre ne by'h'Sufor ne neo'Sor, ]?onne se selmihtiga scyppend 
>e ealle t>uig hylt buton ge-swince hi ge-sta'Selode. JE\c sse', J>eah >e heo 
de6p sy, hsefS grund on J?sere eor'San, and seo eor^e abyr'S ealle sse', and 
hone garsecg, and ealle wyll-springas and edn j^urh hyre yrna'S ; swa swa 
seddran licga'S on bses mannes lichaman, swa licga'S \ia. wseter-seddran geond 
\>ss eorSan ; nsefS na'Sor ne sse' ne ea nsenne stede buton on eor'San. 



POPULAR ERRORS. 89 

The north and south stars, as we are told in another place, 
of which the latter is never seen by men, are fixed, 
and are the poles of the axis on which the firmament 
turns. Falling stars are igneous sparks thrown from the 
constellations, like sparks that fly from coals in the 
fire.* The earth itself "resembles a pine-nut, and the 
sun glides about it, by God's ordinance, and on the 
end where it shines it is day by means of the sun's light, 
whilst the end which it leaves is covered with darkness 
until it return again.'^f The writer of this treatise, in one 
or two instances, mentions and confutes what appeared 
then to the learned to be the popular errors of their age, 
such as that of '^^ some unlearned priests " who said that 
leap-year had been caused by Joshua when he made the 
sun stand still.J The priests, it will be observed, are 
frequently the butt of the sneers of the scholars in the 
tenth century. 

6. Such were the notions inculcated by the popular 
scientific books among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, many 
of them erroneous in themselves, but at the same time con- 
sonant with the doctrines of the greatest scholars who had 
preceded, or who were contemporary. The range, however, 
of these books must have been narrow, in comparison 
Avith the mass of the people who were uninstructed. The 
ideas adopted by the latter were far more erroneous, and 
were often the mere legends of the popular mythology, as 
we see by such writings as the dialogues of Saturn and 
Salomon, and Adrian and Ritheeus, which were probably 

* lb. fol. 45. 

t Seo eor'Se stent on ge-licnesse anre pinn-hnyte, and seo sunne glit on- 
buton be Godes ge-setnysse, and on J^one ende >e heo scin^ is dag >urh hyre 
lihtinge, and se ende \>e heo forlse't biS mid ^eostrum ofer->ealit, o'Stiset heo 
eft >yder ge-neahlsece. lb. fol. 39, \°. 

: lb. fol. 41, r°. 



90 FORM OF THE EARTH. 

intended for recitation among the common people. In 
the latter of these dialogues, to the question " how large 
is the sun ?" the reply is, " larger than the earth," and this 
is deduced from the circumstance that it shines on all 
parts of the earth. The spherical form of our planet was 
universally acknowledged, although it was erroneously 
placed in the centre of the system. An early Latin writer 
compares the universe to an egg, in which the earth is the 
yolk, with the sea surrounding it resembling the white of 
the egg, while the firmament, supposed to be inclosed in 
fire, is the shell.* It is doubtful, however, if it were not 
the most common impression that this round mass on 
which we live swam in the water, that the part we inhabit 
and know was a small portion of the surface which stood 
above the waves, and that the sun dived into the ocean 
each evening, and arose out of it on the following morn. 
7. The ideas which the Anglo-Saxons held with regard 
to that portion of the earth, which was then believed to 
be alone habitable, were derived indirectly or immediately 
from the writings of the Ancients ; and they were on the 
whole more correct than might be expected. Their maps 
were undoubtedly made after Roman models. A map of the 
tenth century, in the British Museum, accompanies the 
Periegesis of Priscian,t which, with the slight sketch given 
by Orosius, and the work of Solinus, were the chief autho- 

* Est ergo terra elementum in medio mundi positum, et ideo infiraum. In 
omni enim spherico solum medium est infimum. Mundus nempe ad simili- 
tudinem ovi dispositus est. Namque terra est in medio ut meditullium in 
ovo ; circa hanc est aqua, ut circa meditullium albumen ; circa aqua[m] est 
aer, ut pannid'es CsicJ continens albumen ; extra vero est ignis ceetera con- 
cludens, admodum testse ovi. MS. Burney, No. 216, fol. 99, r". of the 
twelfth centmy. In an English poem of the thirteenth century, in MS. Harl. 
2277, fol. 133, we have the following definition of the earth, — 

" Urthe is amidde the see, a lute (little) bal and round." 

t MS. Cotton. Tiber. B. v. fol. 58, v°. 



GEOGRAPHY. 91 

rities in geography. Books of cosmography were sought 
eagerly at an early period/* and we need not be surprised 
if their popularity depended most frequently on the num- 
ber of wonderful relations which they contained. The 
stories of this kind given by Pliny the Elder, and repro- 
duced by Solinusj were the foundation of all the extrava- 
gant fables concerning the wonders of distant lands Avhich 
were so widely prevalent during the Middle Ages ; 
but the vague manner in which these writers spoke of 
them was not enough for the curiosity of the multitude, 
and the outline they furnished was soon filled up in spu- 
rious works, like the famous letter of Alexander the Great 
to his preceptor Aristotle, in which the conqueror of the 
East describes minutely all the monsters of India. This 
tract must have been written at an early period, for we 
find an Anglo-Saxon translation of it, with some other 
pieces of a similar kind, in manuscripts of the tenth 
century.t 

8. We find the Anglo-Saxons at an early period dis- 
tinguished by the same spirit of adventure, which has 
been so active and fruitful among their descendants. 
They were anxious to explore the distant countries, whose 
existence had been made known to them by the books which 
the missionaries imported. Even so early as the seventh 
century they were in the habit of going to Rome by sea, 
a voyage in which the pilgrims necessarily incurred many 

* Bonifac. Epist. p. 111. Some person writes to Bishop Lulla, — Csete- 
rum libri cosmographicorum necdum nobis ad manum venerunt : nee alia 
apud nos esemplaria, nisi picturis et litteris permolesta. The latter part of 
the sentence is curious, though at present not quite clear. 

t The Anglo-Saxon version of Aristotle's letter is found in MS. Cotton. 
Vitell. A. XV. along with Beowiilf and Judith. It is preceded by an Anglo- 
Saxon tract on the wonders of the East, which occurs again in Anglo-Saxon 
and Latin in MS. Cott. Tiberius B. v. ; in both places accompanied by drawings 
of a very extraordinary kind, and, m the latter MS. many of them execiited in 
a style much superior to the generality of Anglo-Saxon pictures. 



92 GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. 

perils. At the end of this century, a Frankish bishop 
named Arculf, who was returning from the Holy Land, 
and had visited Constantinople, Damascus, and Alex- 
andria in Egypt, as well as many of the islands of the 
Mediterranean, was thrown by bad weather on the western 
coasts of England, where he became acquainted with the 
abbot Adamnan. The latter carefully stored up the 
information which the traveller communicated to him, and 
afterwards committed it to writing in a treatise which is 
still preserved. It is probable, indeed, from many circum- 
stances, that the Anglo-Saxons themselves made frequent 
visits, not only to Italy, but also to the East. King 
Alfred, who in this, as in other things, merited well the 
character given him by historians of being ^^a diligent 
investigator of unknown things " (ignotarura rerum inves- 
tigationi solerter se jungebat), sent Sighelm, bishop of 
Sherburn, in 883, to India to visit the scene of the labours 
of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew ; and Sighelm not 
only reached in safety this distant land, but he brought 
back with him many of its productions, and particularly 
some gems and relics which were still preserved in his 
church in the time of William of Malmsbury.* The pre- 
sent day cannot furnish a more intelligent account of a 
voyage of discovery, than that taken down by Alfred from 
the mouths of Ohthere and Wulfstan, one of whom had 
sailed to the North Cape, and the other along the northern 
shores of the Baltic, and which that monarch has inserted 
in his own version of Orosius. The map of the tenth 
century, mentioned above, is far more correct than the 
generality of maps which we find in old manuscripts at a 
later period; its chief inaccuracy lies in the distorted 
shape given to Africa, which is here a long narrow slip of 

* See the Saxon Chronicle, and W. Malmsb. p. 248. 



THE NATURAL SCIENCES. 93 

land running out from east to Avest; but the coasts of 
India and Eastern Asia are not ill defined, there are few of 
the fabulous indications which appear afterwards in this 
part of the world, and Paradise does not occupy the place 
of the isles of Japan, as it did after the voyage of St. 
Brandan became popular in the twelfth century. 

§ VII. The Natural Sciences — Medicine. 
1. The systematical study of natural history, in any 
of its branches, has never been cultivated among a people 
who had not reached a high state of civilization. Many 
of the operations of nature are indeed of that wonderful 
character, that they cannot fail to attract at all times the 
attention of the observer ; and although these insulated 
observations were often the cause of the wildest errors 
among the philosophers of a comparatively barbarous age, 
yet they contained the germs of modern science. The 
marvellous transformations which accompanied the change 
of the creeping worm into the elegant butterfly, the 
singular habits of some animals, and the instincts of 
others, were the groundwork of many a superstitious 
fable. Even the fossil remains of a former world did not 
pass unnoticed ; in old writers, such for example as Wil- 
liam of Newbury in the twelfth century, we find many tales 
of animals imbedded in rocks, accidentally released from 
their imprisonment, which were undoubtedly founded upon 
discoveries of fossils ; and these remains perhaps also gave 
rise to the legends of dragons which brooded in caves 
over hidden treasures, and of other animals no less 
extraordinary and fearful than the forms which are pre- 
sented to us by the researches of modern geologists. The 
foreign books on natural history, which the Anglo-Saxons 
seem to have possessed, were by no means calculated to 
give them any very enlightened notions on the subject, for 



94 THE NATURAL SCIENCES. 

they consisted chiefly of fabulous narratives of the ima- 
ginary monsters which were supposed to Uve under the 
burning skies of India and Africa, or of those morahzations 
of the ordinary instincts of some animals which a little 
later became more universally popular under the title of 
Bestiaries. 

2. The learning of the ancients was communicated to 
the people of the middle ages by two distinct roads. First, 
it was introduced along with the ancient literature, when 
those who received it, only just emerging from the depths 
of ignorance, were least capable of cultivating it with ad- 
vantage, and when, from their preconceived ideas and 
various other causes, it was much disfigured, and very 
partially developed. Secondly, after having found a more 
favourable soil among the Arabians in the east, whose vast 
conquests and more enlarged field of scientific observation 
were naturally attended with a proportionate intellectual 
developement, it became the ground-work of a school 
which, at a later period, was carried directly to the West, 
and gradually took the place of the barbarous half- 
Romanized school which had there existed — we can hardly 
say flourished — through several ages. This was more 
particularly the case with the medical and chemical sciences, 
which, less than any others, the Anglo-Saxons were cap- 
able of receiving from their instructors. Before the influ- 
ence of the Arabian school was felt, even the elixir and 
the philosopher's stone were not thought of, and the 
medical knowledge of our early forefathers was confined 
within very narrow limits. In the last struggles of the 
Roman power, and during the inroads of the barbarous 
tribes before whom it fell, all the ancient practical know- 
ledge of medicine and surgery must have disappeared. 
The books which remained were almost useless, not only 
from this want of practical skill, but also from the impos- 



MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE. 95 

sibility of procuring most of the articles which were enu- 
merated in them, among people who had no certain com- 
mercial intercourse with distant parts of the world. This 
was felt strongly among the Anglo-Saxons ; and one of 
Boniface^s correspondents, while earnestly desiring to be 
remembered, in case that adventurous missionary should 
meet with any medical books which were not known in 
England, complains at the same time of the difficulty of 
using them on account of the foreign ingredients which 
those works prescribed.* The consequence of this was, 
that the Anglo-Saxons either returned to the old supersti- 
tious practices and receipts which had been used before 
their conversion to Christianity, or submitted to the autho- 
rity of certain spurious books which were equally absurd 
and superstitious, and which appear to have been made 
with the object of remedying the difficulties above-men- 
tioned. The book which seems to have exerted the 
greatest influence on the science of medicine among the 
Anglo-Saxons, was a Latin herbal published under the 
name of Apuleius, and containing, as it was pretended, the 
doctrines taught to Achilles by Chiron the centaur. This 
spurious treatise, with a tract attributed to Antonius Musa 
on the virtues of the herb betony, and another bearing the 
title of Medicina Animalium, and the name of Sextus Phi- 
losophus,t formed, in an Anglo-Saxon translation, of 
which several copies are still extant, the popular text-book 
among the old physicians. J We may cite, as a fair speci- 

* Nee non et si quos ssecularis scientise libros nobis ignotos adepturi sitis, 
ut sunt de medicinalibus, quorum copia est aliqua apud nos, sed tamen seg- 
meata ultra marina, quae in eis scripta comperimus, ignota nobis sunt et 
difficilia ad adipiscendum. Bonif. Epist. p. 102. 

t Tliese three treatises in Latin were edited at Ravensburg, in 1539, by- 
Gabriel Humelberg, who even at this recent period believed most religiously in 
all the absurdities they contain. 

X Two MSvS. of this Anglo-Saxon herbal, both of the tenth century, are 



96 MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

men of the character of this herbal, the account of the 
herb betony, which is almost a literal version from Anto- 
nius Musa. This plant, we are told, should be gathered 
in the month of August ; no iron was to be used in digging 
it up ; and, when duly prepared, it was not only a power- 
ful antidote against many diseases, but also a sure and 
efficient defence against spectres, fearful sights, and 
dreams.* 

3. In addition to this herbal, we find amongst Anglo- 
Saxon manuscripts several medical works and collections 
of receipts, which are interesting to us not only for the 
light they throw upon the early history of medicine in our 
island, but also because they make us acquainted with the 
classes of diseases chiefly prevalent among the Anglo- 
Saxons, and thus illustrate collaterally the state of society 
in general. This class of works, indeed, forms rather an 
important part of the remains of the literature of these 

found in the British Museum, MS. Cotton. "Vitellius, C, iii. and MS. Harl. 
No. 585. Another of the same age is preserved in the Bodleian Library at 
Oxford. The Harleian MS. No. 6258, B. contains a copy of the same work, 
somewhat enlarged, in semi-Saxon, of about the end of the twelfth century. 
The CottonianMS. and the older Harleian MS. are full of drawings of plants, 
some of them not ill executed. 

* Deos wyrt \>e man beionican nemneS, heo bi]^ cenned on msedum, and on 
clsenum dun-landum, and on ge-fri]?edum stowum. Seo "Seah gehwsejjer ge 
]?Bes mannes sawle ge his lichoman ; hio hyne scyldej:) wi'S unhirum nihtgen- 
dum and wi^ egeslicum ge-sih'Sum and swefnum. And seo wyrt byj> swyi^e 
haligu ; and >>us J>u hi scealt niman, on Agustes mon'Se, butan iserne ; and 
J>onne I'u hi ge-numene hsebbe, ahryse ha moldan 6f, Jpxt hyre nan-wiht on ne 
clyfie, and )ponne drig hi on sceade swyhe t'earle, and mid wyrttruman mid 
eaUe ge-wyrt to duste, bruc hyre })onne, and hyre byrig, J)onne >>u be>urfe. 
MS. Cotton. Vitell. C. iii. fol. 16, r°. This plant, which they call betony, it 
grows in meadows, and on clean hill-lands, and iti inclosed places. It is 
profitable both to man''s soul and to his body ,- it shields him against nightly 
monsters, and against fearful visions and dreams. And the plant is very 
holy ; and thus thou shall take it, in the month of August, without iron .- 
and when thou hast taken it, shake the mould off, so that none adhere to it, 
and then dry it in the shade very much, and ivith the root and all do it to 
powder, use it then, and taste it, when thou hast need. 



DISEASES MOST PREVALENT. 97 

early ages, and deserves more attention than has been 
hitherto bestowed upon it. Among the manuscripts in 
the British Museum which are commonly quoted as the 
Royal Manuscripts, and which were formerly kept at St. 
James's Palace, we find a very curious book on medicine, 
splendidly written in the Anglo-Saxon language, apparently 
of the earlier part of the tenth century, and probably at 
tJiat time the property of a physician of some eminence.* 
This book is divided into two parts, the first relating 
chiefly to the treatment of external diseases, and the 
second to inward diseases, and those of a more complicated 
nature. A large proportion of the cases here provided 
against, are outward wounds, arising sometimes from acci- 
dent, but more frequently from personal violence, the preva- 
lence of which we may assume from the minutely detailed 
penalties imposed upon it by the Anglo-Saxon laws. The 
numerous receipts against the bites of adders and other 
venomous reptiles, show that these latter were infinitely 
more numerous, and probably more various, than they are 
at present, and aid us in conceiving the picture which our 
island then presented to the eye, thinly inhabited, ill-culti- 
vated, and covered with marshes, woods, and wilds. We 
find also in the work above mentioned many receipts 
against the effects of poison ; and (which appears singular 
enough) there are more provisions against diseases of the 
eye than against any other complaint. It is perhaps in 
some measure to the prevalence of this latter class of dis- 
eases in former times, that we owe the preservation of the 
numerous superstitions connected with springs of water; 
and the peasantry in many parts of our island still use 
them, not on account of the purity of the water, but with 
a belief in some peculiar attributes of the well itself. 

* MS. Reg. 12 D. xvu. 
* H 



98 MEDICAL PRACTICE. 

4. Although this treatise is not a herbal, still the ingre- 
dients mentioned are chiefly vegetables;, though mixed 
up sometimes with other substances, such as ale and honey, 
of which latter commodity the consumption was very great 
among the Anglo-Saxons, and, less frequently, fat, oil, or 
wine. The powerful medicinal effects produced by vege- 
table mixtures, and the facility with which they were ob- 
tained, will easily explain the great reputation they enjoyed 
in an uncultivated age ; but the real causes of diseases 
were little known, the connexion between the complaint 
and the remedy was seldom or very imperfectly understood, 
and the success of the latter must have been extremely 
problematical. The object generally aimed at seems to 
have been to produce a sudden and strong impression on 
the system, the effect of which must often have proved 
fatal. One of the receipts against the head-ache, given in 
this book, directs that a salve composed of rue and mus- 
tard-seed should be applied to the side of the head which 
was free from pain, evidently with the expectation of pro- 
ducing a sudden nervous re-action.* So again, for the cure 
of sore eyes, we are directed to make a paste of strawberry 
plants and pepper, which is to be diluted for use in sweet 
wine.f There are few diseases of which the history is so ob- 
scure as that of the small-pox. This obscurity arises partly 

* Wi}> }>on ilcan : ge-nim fset-ful grenre rudan leafa, and senepes ssedes 
cucler fulne, ge-gnid to-gsedere, do seges \>^t hwite to cucler fulne, ]>set sio 
sealf sie J^icce, smire mid fej^ere on \>a. healfe J^e sar ne sie. MS. Reg. 12 D. 
xvii, fol. 7, v°. — Against the same (disease) : take a vessel full of the leaves 
of green rue, and a spoonful of mustard seed, pound them together, add a 
spoonful of the white of an egg, that the salve may be thick, smear it with 
a feather on that side which is not sore. 

f Jjus m6n sceal eag-sealfe wyrcean : ge-nim streaw-berian wisan nioljo- 
wearde, and pipor, ge-cnuwa wel, do on cla}>, be-bind fseste, lege on ge-swet 
win, Iset ge-dreopan on i>a. eagan senne dropan. lb. fol. 13, r°. — Thus shall 
a man make eye-salve ; take the lower parts of strawberry plants, and 
pepper, knead them well together, put them in a cloth, tie them up fast, lay 
them in sweet wine, let one drop fall on the eye. 



MEDICAL PRACTICE. 99 

from the difficulty of identifying the disease under the names 
which seem to have been given to it at different times. In 
our own language it was formerly called simply the pockes^ 
the plural form of a word which signified nothing more than 
pustules. In the Anglo-Saxon treatise of which we are 
now speaking, we find two or three receipts against the 
"pockes^' (wil>poccum)3 which is perhaps the same disease 
we now call small-pox, although, by the number and sim- 
ple character of the prescriptions, it would appear either 
not to have been very prevalent, or else to have possessed 
a less dangerous character than that which it assumed in 
later times. On the appearance of the first symptoms of 
the disease, bleeding is ordered, and a bowl-full of melted 
butter is recommended to be taken inwardly ; if the pus- 
tules be broken out, the physician is directed to pick them 
all out carefully with a thorn, and to pour a drop of wine 
or alder syrup in the place, which process was to prevent 
them from leaving any marks.* The terrible effects of 
hydrophobia seem not to have been much known at this 
time ; two or three receipts are given against the bite of 
mad dogs, but they are all very simple, the most remark- 
able being plasters of boiled onions, ashes, fat, and honey, 
or of plantain, mulberries, and fat, to be applied to the 
wound.f 

* Witj poccum : swi'Se sceal mon blod l^etan, and drincan amylte buteran 
boUan fulne ; gif hie ut-slean, selcne man sceall aweg adelfan mid }3orne, and 
J^onne win o'SSe alor-drenc diype on innan, J^onne ne beo'S by ge-syne. lb. 
fol. 40, r". — Against pockes : very much shall one let blood, and di'inlc a 
howl-ful of melted butter ; if they strike out, one shall dig each away with 
a thorn, and then drop wine or alder-drink hi, then they will not be seen. 
This last observation (the anxiety to hinder marks from being left) seems 
to identify the disease. 

t Wi}) wede-hundes slite : . . . . twa cipan o'S'Se freo, seo\>, ge-brsed 6n 
ahsan, meng wi'S rysle and hunige, lege 6n, . . , ^ft, ge-nim weg-brsedan, 
moran, ge-cna wi^^ rysle, do on J^set dolh, {jonne ascryp^ hio \>xt ater aweg. 
lb. fol. 54, r". — Against the bite of a mad-dog : take tivo onions or three, 
boil them, spread them in ashes, mix- them with fat and honey, lay it on. . • 

H 2 



100 SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 

5. Surgical operations, among the Anglo-Saxons, were 
few and rude. They consisted chiefly in bleeding (the 
success of which was supposed to depend less on the con- 
dition of the patient, than on the choice of the proper 
time for its performance, according to certain calendars of 
good and evil days) ; the application of poultices to draw 
out humours and reduce inflammations ; setting broken 
bones, and staunching wounds. Honey was the sub- 
stance generally used for cleansing external wounds ; be- 
fore application, it was to be warmed at the fire, and mixed 
with salt.* Another operation, described in the Anglo- 
Saxon medical treatise, gives us no very favourable idea 
of surgical practice : ^^ if a man have a limb cut ofi", be 
it finger, or foot, or hand, if the marrow be out, take 
sheep^s marrow boiled, lay it to the other marrow, bind 
it very well at night.'^f Perhaps the most scientific 
prescription in the whole volume is a medicated bath, 
ordered to be used for the cure of a disease which was 
probably the dropsy ; this bath was to consist of a strong 
decoction of various herbs, among which are enumerated 
wild marjoram, broom, ivy, mugwort, and henbane; while 
immersed in it, the patient was to drink a decoction of 
other herbs, among which we find the all-efficient herb 
betony, with centaury, agrimony, red-nettles, sage, herb 
Alexander, &c. ; and the liquor in which these latter were 



Again, take way-broad (plantain) and mulberries, knead them with fat, put 
this on the wound, then it drives away the venom. 

* To wunde clsesnunge : ge-nim clsene hunig, ge-wyrme to fyre, ge-do 
>onne on clsene fet, do sealt to, and hrere o> J'set hit hsebbe briwes Mcnesse, 
smire t'a wunde mid, J^onne fulla^ hio. lb, fol. 34, v°, — For cleansing of a 
wound : take clean honey, warm it at the fire, then put it in a clean vessel, 
add salt to it, and stir it till it has the thickness of pottage, smear the 
wound ivith it, then it cleanses it. 

t Gif men si lim 6i aslegen, finger o^e f6t oJ^J^e band : gif >>8et mearh 
ute sie, ge-nim sceapes mearh ge-sodea, lege on J^aet oJ?er mearh, awri]? 
swi'Se wel neahterne. lb. fol. 36, r°. 



MEDICAL SUPERSTITIONS. lOl 

to be boiledj was one that we should hardly expect to find 
mentioned at that time, namely-j Welsh ale.^ 

6. The Anglo-Saxon treatise in the Royal Library 
shows, in a very remarkable manner, that the practice of 
medicine, amongst our forefathers, as well as among the 
other branches of the great Teutonic race, was a strange 
mixture of science and superstition, even in the hands 
of its most skilful professors. The ingredients which the 
physician used, frequently owed their virtues to some 
accidental circumstance with which, in the minds of the 
people, they were connected ; as in the case of one receipt 
in which those particular herbs only are declared to be 
efficient " which grow spontaneously, and are not planted 
by the hand of man.''"'t Much of their efficiency also de- 
pended upon the day on which they were administered, or 
on which the patient fell ill, and this again was regulated 
by the changes of the moon. The Anglo-Saxon manu- 
scripts contain many lists of the attributes of each day of 
the lunar month, as they were supposed to be good or 
evil for sickness and the various operations of life. For 
example, they inform us that " The first day of the moon 
is propitious for all kinds of work ; he who falls ill on 
that day, will languish long, and suffer much ; the infant 

* Bset' wij? Jiam miclan lice : eolone, brum, ifig, miic-wyrt, self-J'one, 
beolone, cottuc, efelastan, wyl on wsetere swi>e, ge6t on bydene, and sitte 
6n. Drince J>isne drenc wi)>]?on : betonican, curmille, hofe, agrimonia, spring- 
wyrt, reade netle, elehtre, salvie, singrene, alexandiia, sie ge-worht 6f 
Wiliscum Bala's, drince on }?am baj^e, and ne Isete 6n J^one e>m. lb. fol. 
29, v°. — Welsh ale is mentioned at a still earlier date in the laws of Ine, 
§ 70, and (A.D. 852) in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle : Wulfred scolde gife 
twa tunnan fulle Wutres ale's, and ten mittan Wselsces aloS — Wulfred should 
give two tuns full of clear ale, and ten mittan or measures of Welsh ale. 

■Y eft Wi]> J>on ilcan : ge-nim tun-cersan sio J^e self weaxe^ and m6n ne 
saew'S, do in }?a nosu J^aet se stsenc msege on hset heafod and J^set seaw. MS. 
Reg. 12 D. xvii. fol. 8, v°. — Again, against the same (i. e. a l/roken head) .- 
take of garden cress that which grows of itself, and man sows not, put it in 
the nose that the smell and the juice may go into the head. 



102 MEDICAL SUPERSTITIONS. 

who is then born will live. The second is also a pros- 
perous day, good for buying, selling, embarking on ship- 
board, beginning a journey, sowing, grafting, arranging a 
garden, ploughing land ; theft committed on this day will 
be soon and easily detected ; a person who falls sick will 
soon recover ; the child born will grow fast, but will not 

live long The fourth day of the moon is good for 

beginning works, as building mills and opening drains ; 

the child born on this day will be a great politician 

The sixth day of the moon is a favourable day for hunt- 
ing The eighth day is good for changing bees ; 

but he who falls sick on this day will suffer a long illness, 
and will not recover. . , , . A child born on the tenth 
day of the moon will be a great traveller ; and, if born on 
the twenty-first, he will become a bold robber."* These 
superstitious feelings were not always confined to the 
manner or time of treating diseases, but they also ex- 
tended to the diseases themselves. The causes of many 
outward affections of the body were too apparent to be 
easily overlooked, but inward diseases often assumed a 
more mysterious character, which baffled the utmost skill 
of the physician. They were then believed to be caused 
immediately by evil beings, the elves, according to the 
creed of the people, or the demons, according to that of 
the monks; or else they were produced by the charm 
of the witch, or by the sinister influence of the evil eye.f 

* MS. Cotton. Titus, D. xxviii. fol. 27, etc. 

t Mugwort {artemisia) was believed to possess extraordinary virtues 
against such visitations. >onne hwa si^fset onginnan wille, 'Sonne ge-nime 
he him on hand }>as wyrte art erne dam, and hsebbe mid him, 'Sonne ne ongyt 
he na micel to ge-swynce >ses si-Ses ; and eac heo aflig^' deoful-seocnyssa, 
and on J?am huse ]?e he hy inne hsef S, heo forbyt yfele lacnunga, and eac 
heo awende'S yfelra manna eagan. MS. Cotton. Vitel. C. iii. fol. 21, v°. and 
MS. Harl. No. 585, fol. 18, v°. — When any man loill begin a journey, let 
Mm take in his hand the herb artemisia, and have it with him, then he will 
■iwt be much fatigued in hisjotirney; and also it drives away devil -sicknesses, 



CHARMS. 103 

Fevers, more particularly, were attributed to such causes, 
and this class of diseases, which occupies a considerable 
portion of the second book of the great Anglo-Saxon 
medical work, introduces us there to a numerous collection 
of charms and incantations, and to a list of diseases which 
received their names from the imaginary beings who were 
supposed to have sent them. In these cases, the phy- 
sician trusted no longer to the simple virtues of his herbs ; 
but he sought to drive away these unwelcome visitors by 
religious exorcisms ; or to pacify them, and induce them 
to carry their visitations to some other object, by means of 
counter-charms, which were derived from a still more su- 
perstitious age. The latter object was generally effected by 
charming the disease into a stick, or a piece of wood, which 
was thrown across a highway, as an effectual separation 
from the patient, and there it waited to be communicated 
to the first person who picked up the stick : this process, 
still familiar to the peasantry in the less enlightened parts 
of England, was, among the Anglo-Saxons, an approved 
remedy in the hands of the professors of the healing art.* 
One example from the medical book we have so often 
quoted, will be sufficient to illustrate the character of the 
religious charms : it is a " drink " composed of herbs for 

and in tie house where it is kept, it hinders evil cures, and also it averts 
the eyes of evil men. So in the great medical book, WiJ? miclum gonge ofer 
land ; hy lees he teorige, mucg-wyrt nime him on hand, oi'^'e do on his sco, 
J'y Ises he me}>ige, and )>onne he niman -wille, ser sunnan upgange cwe)>e 
|?as word serest, Tellamte artemesia, ne lassus st'im in via, gesena hie Jjonne 
i>\i up teo. MS. Reg. 12 D. xvii. fol. 57, r°. — Against a great journey over 
land : lest he become faint, let him take mugwort in his hand, or put it in 
his shoe lest he become weary, and when he will gather it, be/ore sunrise, 
say these words first — Tollam te, artemesia, ne lassus sim in via — loudly, 
when thou pullest it up. 

* WiJ? hon gif hunta ge-bite mannan, Jjset is swij^ra, sleah J^ry scearpan 
neah from weardes, Iset yrnan j^aet blod 6n grenne sticcaa hseslenne, weorp 
Jjonne ofer weg aweg, ^onne ne bi> nan yfel. MS. Reg. 12 J), xvii. fol. 
43, v'. 



104 ANGLO-SAXON RUNES. 

a person labouring under a disease caused by evil spirits, 
and is to be administered in a church bell •• — " Take thrift 
grass (?), yarrow, elehtre, betony, penny-grass, carruc, fane, 
fennel, church-wort, christmas-wort, lovage ; make them 
into a potion with clear ale, sing seven masses over the 
plants daily, and add holy water, and drip the draught into 
every drink that he shall drink afterwards, and sing the 
psalm Beati immaculati, and Exsurgat, and Sulvum me 
/ac, Deus, and then let him drink the draught out of the 
church bell, and after he has drunk it, let the mass priest 
sing over him Domine s and e pater omnipotens.'''^ 

7. The subject of charms is intimately connected with 
the history of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet. It is well 
known that what we generally term Anglo-Saxon letters, 
with the exception of \, (th), ^, (dhJ,mxA p {w), are nothing- 
more than the common Roman characters, as the}'^ were in- 
troduced by the missionaries, and used in the early ma- 
nuscripts. Our ancestors, previous to their conversion, 
possessed an alphabet peculiar to themselves, the letters 
of which were in their own language designated by the 
name of 7-unes, and which, before their literature was 
committed to writing, served all the purposes to which 
they were accustomed to apply them ; for these M^ere con- 
fined to an occasional inscription, or to certain magical 

* Drenc wijp feond-sceocum men, of ciric-bellan to drincaune : gyj^rife glses, 
gearwe, elehtre, betonice, attorlaj^e, carruc, fane, finul, ciiic-ragu, Cristes- 
mseles ragu, lufestice, ge-wyrc J^one drenc of hluttrum eala'5, ge-singe seofon 
msessan ofer p&m wyrtum dogerle^c, and [do] halig wseter to, and drype 
6n selcne drincan l>one drenc J^e he drincan wille eft, and singe Jjone sealm, 
Beati inmaculati, and Exurgdt, and Salvum me fac Deus, and J^onne 
drince J^one drenc 6f cmc-bellan, and se msesse-preost him singe sjefter J>am 
drence J?is ofer, Domine sancte pater omnipotens. lb. fol. 51, v". It is 
rather uncertain what plants are designated by some of the names in the fore- 
going receipt. It may be observed here, that, in quoting from inedited 
Saxon treatises, in the present Essay, the accents are given precisely as they 
stand in the manuscripts. 



ANGLO-SAXON RUNES. 105 

phrases that were engraved on their arms, and on pieces 
of wood, or other materials, to be carried about their 
persons. From this practice, and from the rarity of in- 
scriptions, the letters themselves were an object of super- 
stition, and their name became equivalent to magic and 
mystery. Their form rendered them inconvenient for writ- 
ing extensively ; but long after the conversion of the Anglo- 
Saxons, the runic alphabet was preserved, and we find it 
in manuscripts written as late as the twelfth century. Al- 
though these letters were still used for various superstitious 
purposes, yet they were not unfrequently applied to other 
objects. As each letter had a significant name, we often 
find it used playfully in serious poems, instead of the 
word which designates it, as, for instance, in one of the 
poems of the VerceUi Manuscript, and even in the Ro- 
mance of Beowulf. Among the riddles in the Exeter 
Manuscript, and in the Metrical Salomon and Saturn, 
these letters are frequently inserted with the intention of 
increasing the obscurity of the subject, sometimes with 
the signification of words, at others merely as letters, 
while in some cases the two systems seem to be mixed, 
and we are often obliged to read them backwards, before 
we can discover the mystery which is concealed under 
them. The runic alphabet, and the signification of its 
letters, form also the subject of a very curious Anglo- 
Saxon poem printed from a manuscript, now lost, by 
Hickes in his Thesaurus, and reprinted by WilHam 
Grimm in a small treatise in German on the Teutonic 
Runes. Many of the crosses and other strange marks 
which are found among the superstitious medical receipts^ 
represent jjrobably the Runic charms of an earlier date. 



106 CHANGES OF THE ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE. 

§ VIII. Fate of the Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature. 
1 . During the period of which any written monuments 
in the Anglo-Saxon language are preserved, extending 
from the eighth century to the Norman conquest, it seems 
not to have undergone any great change. But soon after 
the entrance of the Normans, its use as a written language 
was superseded, first by the Latin tongue, which, in- 
troduced by the foreign ecclesiastics, again took the 
station Avhich it had occupied in the eighth century, 
and continued to flourish until the middle of the thir- 
teenth ; and secondly, by the Anglo-Norman, a Neo- 
Latin dialect, w^hicli was the vernacular tongue of the 
invaders, and was not laid aside until the beginning of 
the fourteenth century. It is probable that the Anglo- 
Saxon tongue preserved its purity until the beginning of 
the twelfth century ; but it then began to experience the 
influence of the great political revolution which had been 
effected in England. It was by degrees subjected to a 
general organic change of many of its letters ; syllables 
were cut short in the pronunciation ; and the final termi- 
nations and inflections of words began to be softened 
down, until at a later period they were entirely lost. In 
the latter years of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, which closes 
with A.D. 1155, we see that the language had already 
degenerated much from what it was fifty years before ; 
and the change is still more apparent in the fragments 
lately published by Sir Thomas Phillipps. We have 
scarcely any other documents in the English tongue which 
can be ascribed with certainty to the twelfth century ; but 
when we come to the age of Layamon, in the earlier 
half of the thirteenth, we find the transformation so com- 
plete, that it may be doubted whether the uncorrupted 
language of the Anglo-Saxon writings could then be 



DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 107 

understood without much difficulty. During the thir- 
teenth century, this organic cliange proceeded so rapidly, 
that there is quite as wide a difference between the language 
of Layamon and that which was written at the beginning 
of the fourteenth century, as there had been between the 
former and that written in the tenth, or as there is 
between the English language as written in the reign of 
Edward the Second, and the same tongue as we possess 
it at the present day. The form of our language during 
the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth century is 
generally termed Semi-Saxon ; from that period to the 
time of the Reformation it has received from modern 
philologists the name of Middle-English. 

2. The greatest destruction of Anglo-Saxon books hap- 
pened during the numerous inroads of the Danes, from 
the ninth to the eleventh century, when so many of the 
richest libraries were committed to the flames, along with 
the monasteries in which they were deposited. Under the 
rule of the Normans, from the Conquest to the beginning 
of the thirteenth century, our old chroniclers relate many 
stories illustrative of the contempt with which the Anglo- 
Norman barons regarded the language of those whose 
rights they had usurped ; but the more serious disputes re- 
lated to charters rather than books, the latter (except 
when from time to time some English monk took them 
down) were allowed to lie neglected in the dust of 
monastic libraries, and the only losses which they sus- 
tained seem to have been the natural consequence of 
dirt and damp. But after this period the case was 
entirely changed, and, as they could no longer be read 
even by Englishmen, they had to suffer from various 
causes. A few monastic catalogues are still preserved in 
manuscripts of that age, and they contain the titles of 
many Anglo-Saxon books, which, however, are generally 



108 DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 

described as being " old and useless/'* Accordingly^ we 
find that when the monks were in want of vellum, they 
scrupled not to take one of these "old and useless" 
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts ; and, having carefully scraped 
out the original letters, to make use of it for writing a 
new work, which they considered more important and 
necessary. One of these palimpsests is preserved in the 
Library of Jesus College, Cambridge, in which a splendid 
copy of the Anglo-Saxon Homilies of Alfric has been 
erased to make room for Latin decretals, although the 
destruction of the original was not so complete as to 
hinder us from tracing here and there a few words, 
particularly about the margins of the leaves. Some- 
times, also, when the monks were at a loss for boards to 
bind their books, they took a few folios of these use- 
less old manuscripts, and pasted them together ; as 
was the case with the leaves discovered by Sir Thomas 
Phillipps in the covers of a volume preserved in Worces- 
ter Cathedral. The loss which Anglo-Saxon literature 
sustained by these means must have been very great. At 
the time of the Reformation, when, by the dissolution of 
the monasteries, their libraries of manuscripts were scat- 
tered in all directions, the number which perished cannot 
now be calculated, though the fragments which are found 
in the old bindings of books are sufficient to convince 
us that it was not small. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, 
however, suffered much less at this time than the others, 

* See, for example, a catalogue of the books in the Library at Glaston- 
bury, made in 1248, and printed byWanley, in the Introduction to his Cata- 
logue of Saxon Manuscripts, from a MS. in the Library of Trinity College, 
Cambridge. We find several entries like the following : — 

Item, duo Anglica, vetusta et inutilia. 

Item, Sermones Anglici, vetusti, inutiles. 

Passionale Sanctorum Anglice scriptum, vetust. inutile. 
The second of these items was a volume of Anglo- Saxon homilies. 



I 



STUDY OF ANGLO-SAXON. 109 

owing to the eagerness of the Reformers to collect them ; 
yet we still find a few fragments in the covers of books 
printed during the sixteenth century. 

3. The two great collectors of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts 
in the sixteenth century were Matthew Parker, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and Sir Robert Cotton. At the 
time of the Reformation, when church property was not 
always regarded with the same respect as at present, Par- 
ker found no difficulty in transferring most of the Anglo- 
Saxon manuscripts which were found in the libraries of 
cathedrals and churches into his own collection. Sir 
Robert Cotton was equally successful in gathering toge- 
ther those which had passed, by the plunder of the monas- 
teries, into the stalls of booksellers or the hands of private 
individuals; and these two libraries, the former now pre- 
served in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the latter 
in the British Museum, are still the richest in Anglo-Saxon 
literature. Next in the scale we must place the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford, with the University Library at Cam- 
bridge, and one or two of the college libraries. The Royal 
Library in the British Museum is perhaps the richest of 
them all in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of Latin books, and 
this, as well as the Harleian Library, and some other 
public and private collections, possess also a few scattered 
volumes written in the vernacular tongue. 

4. It has been already observed that public attention 
was first directed to the remains of our Anglo-Saxon fore- 
fathers, by the support which they afibrded to the argu- 
ments of the Reformers.* Soon after the middle of the six- 
teenth century. Fox the martyrologist, and William L^Isle, 

* It has been said, that so early as the fifteenth century, the monks of 
Tavistock applied themselves to the study of the Anglo-Saxon language, and 
that they even printed a grammar. No traces, however, of such a book can 
now be found ; and it may have been a mere error arising from the inde- 
finite manner in which some people formerly applied the term Anglo-Saxon. 



110 STUDY OF ANGLO-SAXON. 

under the auspices of Archbishop Parker, prosecuted the 
study of the Anglo-Saxon language, and published the 
Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels and some of the Homi- 
lies. But their knowledge of the language was very imper- 
fect, and confined entirely to the prose writings ; for the 
difficulties they had to encounter, without grammar or dic- 
tionary, were too formidable to allow of their making much 
progress. About the middle of the seventeenth century flou- 
rished Spelman, Gibson, Whelock, and Junius, who gave 
to the study of the Anglo-Saxon language a new character. 
The first of these scholars was preparing to establish an 
Anglo-Saxon professorship in the University of Cam- 
bridge, when his intentions were thwarted by the turbu- 
lent times which followed. Sir Henry Spelman published 
the Ecclesiastical Laws in 1639; and his son edited the 
Anglo-Saxon Psalter in the following year. In 1643, 
Whelock printed Alfred's translation of Bede, with part 
of the Chronicle. Junius gave an edition of the poetry 
attributed to Csedmon, in 1655. In 1659, Somner pub- 
lished the first Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. From this 
period to the end of the century, numerous distinguished 
scholars were working zealously to bring to light new 
documents of Anglo-Saxon literature, and to facilitate the 
study of the language. Among others we may enumerate 
Bishop Gibson, Thwaites, Rawlinson, Hickes, and his 
niece Elizabeth Elstob. In 1689, Hickes published 
the first Anglo-Saxon Grammar, a book containing, as 
might naturally be expected, many errors, which later 
discoveries, and a more extensive reading, have corrected, 
but which, nevertheless, was then of great service to the 
cause of Anglo-Saxon philology. In 1692, Bishop Gib- 
son printed a more complete edition of the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle ; and in 1698, Rawlinson published King Alfred's 
Translation of Boethius, which was followed in 1699 by 



STUDY OF ANGLO-SAXON. Ill 

Thwaites's edition of the Heptateuch. In 1701, an An- 
glo-Saxon vocabulary was published in an octavo volume 
by Thomas Benson ; and four years afterwards, appeared 
the celebrated Thesaurus of Dr. Hickes. 

5. After the beginning of the eighteenth century, the 
study of the Anglo-Saxon language soon fell into neglect ; 
and it was long regarded as a mere toy for the amusement 
of antiquaries. The only wor^s of any importance which 
were given to the world during this long period, were the 
Laws, by Wilkins, in 1721 and 1737 5 Alfred's Bede, by 
Smith, in 1722; and the Great Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 
by Lye and Manning, in 1772, a mommcient of unwearied 
industry, but disfigured by a multitude of errors. In 1 773, 
Daines Barrington published an ill executed edition of 
King Alfred^s translation of Orosius. In 1750, the Anglo- 
Saxon Professorship was founded at Oxford, and brought 
into effect in 1795. 

6. We owe the revival of the study of the Anglo-Saxon 
language and literature at the present day, in some mea- 
sure to foreign scholars, whose attention was frequently 
given to it at the latter end of the last, and the beginning 
of the present century. In 1815, Thorkelin, a Dane, 
published the first edition of the Romance of Beowulf, 
which is, however, a very incorrect book. A few years 
later, Erasmus Rask at Copenhagen, and Dr. James Grimm 
in Germany, began to apply a more enlarged system of 
philology to the language. About the same time, the 
literature of our forefathers began to attract the attention 
of scholars in England, and was industriously cultivated 
by Conybeare, Ingram, and Bosworth; and, after the 
space of a century, the place formerly occupied by Eliza- 
beth Elstob, was supplied by a worthy successor in Miss 
Gurney. The systems of Rask and Grimm, as applied to 
Anglo-Saxon philology, have since taken a more substan- 



112 STUDY OF ANGLO-SAXON. 

tial form under the hands of two native scholars, Thorpe 
and Kemble. Thorpe's translation of Kask is the best 
Grammar which has yet appeared. A portable Dictionary 
has been published recently by Dr. Bosworth ; so that 
the impediments which formerly hindered the study of the 
Anglo-Saxon language are now entirely removed. Yet still, 
from the deficiency in many classes of documents, and from 
the recent period at which it has been studied in a true 
philological spirit, it is a language which is but imper- 
fectly known. 



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